EX 

LIBRIS 


PAUL   STOOD    BY   HER,   LOOKING    DOWN    INTO    HER   EYES,  BENDING  OVER 
HER,  SMILING,  PRESSING,    CONFIDENT,   MASTERFUL    (PAGE   96) 


THE   SQUIRREL-CAGE 


BY 


DOROTHY    CANFIELD 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  1912, 

BY 

THE  RIDGWAY  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1912, 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  March,  1912 


June,    1922 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  I 

THE  FAIRY  PRINCESS 
:HAFTBK  PAGE 

I  AN  AMERICAN  FAMILY 3 

II  AMERICAN  BEAUTIES 12 

III  PICKING  UP  THE  THREADS 22 

IV  THE  DAWN 32 

V  THE  DAY  BEGINS 42 

VI    LYDIA'S  GODFATHER 55 

VII    OUTSIDE  THE  LABYRINTH 61 

VIII    THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  COMING  EVENT 78 

IX    FATHER  AND  DAUGHTER 88 

X    CASUS  BELLI 99 

BOOK  II 
IN  THE  LOCOMOTIVE  CAB 

XI    WHAT  is  BEST  FOR  LYDIA 115 

XII    A  SOP  TO  THE  WOLVES 122 

XIII  LYDIA  DECIDES  IN  PERFECT  FREEDOM 131 

XIV  MID-SEASON    NERVES 139 

XV    A  HALF- HOUR'S  LIBERTY 154 

XVI    ENGAGED  TO  BE  MARRIED 165 

XVII    CARD-DEALING  AND  PATENT  CANDLES 177 


2135720 


Contents 

BOOK  III 
A  SUITABLE  MARRIAGE 

CHAPTER  rx  .' 

XVIII  Two  SIDES  TO  THE  QUESTION 193 

XIX  LYDIA'S  NEW  MOTTO 207 

XX  AN  EVENING'S  ENTERTAINMENT 215 

XXI  AN  ELEMENT  OF  SOLIDITY 226 

XXII  THE  VOICES  IN  THE  WOOD 233 

XXIII  FOR  ARIADNE'S   SAKE 244 

XXIV  "THROUGH  PITY  AND  TERROR  EFFECTING  A  PURIFI- 

CATION OF  THE  HEART" 261 

XXV    A  BLACK  MILE-STONE 270 

XXVI    A  HINT  FROM  CHILDHOOD 277 

XXVII    LYDIA  REACHES  HER  GOAL  AND  HAS  HER  TALK  WITH 

HER  HUSBAND 289 

XXVIII    "  THE  AMERICAN  MAN  " 307 

XXIX    ". IN  TRAGIC  LIFE,  GOD  WOT, 

No  VILLAIN  NEED  BE.    PASSIONS  SPIN  THE  PLOT  "  .  318 
XXX    TRIBUTE  TO  THE  MINOTAUR 328 

BOOK  IV 
BUT  IT  IS  NOT  TOO  LATE  FOR  ARIADNE 

XXXI  PROTECTION  FROM  THE  MINOTAUR 337 

XXXII  As  ARIADNE  SAW  IT 342 

XXXIII  WHAT  is  BEST  FOR  THE  CHILDREN? 351 

XXXIV  THROUGH  THE  LONG  NIGHT 359 

XXXV  THE  SWAYING  BALANCE 365 

XXXVI    ANOTHER  DAY  BEGINS 369 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAUL  STOOD  BY  HER,  LOOKING  DOWN  INTO  HER  EYES, 
BENDING  OVER  HER,  SMILING,  PRESSING,  CONFIDENT, 
MASTERFUL  (PAGE  96) Frontispiece 

PAGE 
"  YOU     SAY     BEAUTIFUL    THINGS !  "     HE    REPLIED     QUIETLY.      "  MY 

ROUGH    QUARTERS    ARE   GLORIFIED   FOR    ME" 69 

"  No,  NO  ;  I  CAN'T  —  SEE  HIM  —  I  CAN'T  STAND  ANY  MORE  — "  .  137 

"  I  SEE  EVERYTHING  NOW,"  SHE  WENT  ON.      "  HE  COULD  NOT  STOP."  272 


THE    SQUIRREL-CAGE 


BOOK  I 
THE  FAIRY  PRINCESS 

CHAPTER  I 
AN  AMERICAN  FAMILY 

THE  house  of  the  Emery  family  was  a  singularly  good 
example  of  the  capacity  of  wood  and  plaster  and  brick  to 
acquire  personality.  It  was  the  physical  symbol  of  its 
owners'  position  in  life ;  it  was  the  history  of  their  career, 
written  down  for  all  to  see,  and  as  such  they  felt  in  it 
the  most  justifiable  pride.  When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Emery, 
directly  after  their  wedding  in  a  small  Central  New  York 
village,  had  gone  West  to  Ohio  they  had  spent  their  tiny 
capital  in  building  a  small  story-and-a-half  cottage,  orna- 
mented with  the  jig-saw  work  and  fancy  turning  popular 
in  1872,  and  this  had  been  the  nucleus  of  their  present 
rambling,  picturesque,  many-roomed  home.  Every  step  in 
the  long  series  of  changes  which  had  led  from  its  first  state 
to  its  last  had  a  profound  and  gratifying  significance  for 
the  Emerys,  and  its  final  condition,  prosperous,  modern, 
sophisticated,  with  the  right  kind  of  woodwork  in  every 
room  that  showed,  with  the  latest,  most  unobtrusively  ar- 
tistic effects  in  decoration,  represented  their  culminating 
well-earned  position  in  the  inner  circle  of  the  best  society 
of  Endbury. 

Moreover,  they  felt  that  just  as  the  house  had  been  at- 
tained with  effort,  self-denial  and  careful  calculations,  yet 
still  without  incurring  debt,  so  their  social  position  had  been 
secured  by  unremitting  diligence  and  care,  but  with  no 
loss  of  self-respect  or  even  of  dignity.  They  were  honestly 

3 


4  The  Squirrel-Cage 

proud  both  of  their  house  and  of  their  list  of  acquaintances 
and  saw  no  reason  to  regard  them  as  less  worthy  achieve- 
ments of  an  industrious  life  than  their  four  creditable 
grown-up  children  or  Judge  Emery's  honorable  reputation 
at  the  bar.  In  their  youth  they  had  conceived  of  certain 
things  as  worth  attaining.  They  had  worked  hard  for 
these  things  and  their  unabashed  pleasure  in  possessing 
them  had  the  vivid  and  substantial  quality  which  comes 
from  a  keen  memory  of  battles  with  a  world  none  too 
ready  to  grant  human  desires. 

The  two  older  children,  George  and  Marietta,  could  re- 
member those  early  struggling  days  with  almost  as  fresh 
an  emotion  as  that  of  their  parents.  Indeed,  Marietta, 
now  a  competent,  sharp-eyed  matron  of  thirty-two,  could 
not  see  the  most  innocuous  colored  lithograph  without  an 
uncontrollable  wave  of  bitterness,  so  present  to  her  mind 
was  the  period  when  they  painfully  groped  their  way  out 
of  chromos. 

The  date  of  that  epoch  coincided  with  the  date  of  their 
first  acquaintance  with  the  Hollisters.  The  Hollisters 
were  Endbury's  First  Family;  literally  so,  for  they  had 
come  up  from  their  farm  in  Kentucky  to  settle  in  Endbury 
when  it  was  but  a  frontier  post.  It  was  a  part  of  their 
superiority  over  other  families  that  their  traditions  took 
cognizance  of  the  time  when  great  stumps  from  the  pri- 
meval forest  stood  in  what  was  now  Endbury's  public 
square,  the  hub  of  interurban  trolley  traffic,  whence  the 
big,  noisy  cars  started  for  their  infinitely  radiating  journeys 
over  the  flat,  fertile  country  about  the  little  city.  The  par- 
ticular Mrs.  Hollister  who,  at  the  time  the  Emerys  began 
to  pierce  the  upper  crust,  was  the  leader  of  Endbury 
society,  had  discarded  chromos  as  much  as  five  years  before. 
Mrs.  Emery  and  Marietta,  newly  admitted  to  the  honor  of 
her  acquaintance,  wondered  to  themselves  at  the  cold 
monotony  of  her  black  and  white  engravings.  The  art- 
lessness  of  this  wonder  struck  shame  to  their  hearts  when 
they  chanced  to  learn  that  the  lady  had  repaid  it  with  a 
worldly-wise  amusement  at  their  own  highly-colored 


An  American  Family  5 

waterfalls  and  snow-capped  mountain-peaks.  Marietta 
could  recall  as  piercingly  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  in  how 
crestfallen  a  chagrin  she  and  her  mother  had  gazed  at 
their  parlor  after  this  incident,  their  disillusioned  eyes  open 
for  the  first  time  to  the  futility  of  its  claim  to  sophistication. 
As  for  the  incident  that  had  led  to  the  permanent  retir- 
ing from  their  table  of  the  monumental  salt-and-pepper 
"  caster  "  which  had  been  one  of  their  most  prized  wedding 
presents,  the  Emerys  refused  to  allow  themselves  to  re- 
member it,  so  intolerably  did  it  spell  humiliation. 

Even  the  oldest  son,  prosperous,  well-established  manu- 
facturer that  he  was,  could  not  recall  without  a  shudder 
his  first  dinner-party.  A  branch  of  the  Hollisters  had 
moved  next  door  to  the  Emerys  and,  to  Mrs.  Emery's 
great  satisfaction,  an  easy  neighborly  acquaintance  had 
sprung  up  between  the  two  families.  Secure  in  this 
familiarity,  and  not  distinguishing  the  immense  difference 
between  a  chance  invitation  to  drop  in  to  dinner  and  a 
formal  invitation  to  dine,  the  young  business-man  had 
almost  forgotten  the  date  for  which  he  had  been  bidden. 
Remembering  it  with  a  start,  he  had  gone  straight  from  his 
office  to  the  house  of  his  hosts,  supposing  that  he  would 
be  able,  as  he  had  done  many  times  before,  to  wash  his  face 
and  hands  in  the  bath-room  and  brush  his  hair  in  the  room 
of  the  son  of  the  house. 

The  sight  of  a  black  man  in  evening  dress,  who  opened 
the  door  to  him  instead  of  the  usual  maid,  sent  a  vague 
apprehension  through  his  preoccupied  mind,  but  it  was 
not  until  he  found  himself  in  the  room  set  apart  for  the 
masculine  guests  and  saw  everyone  arrayed  in  "  swallow- 
tails," as  he  thought  of  them,  that  he  realized  what  he  had 
done.  The  emotion  of  the  moment  was  one  that  made  a 
mark  on  his  life. 

He  had  an  instant's  wild  notion  of  making  some  excuse 
to  go  home  and  dress,  for  his  plight  was  by  no  means 
due  to  necessity.  He  had  a  correct  outfit  of  evening 
clothes,  bought  at  the  urgent  command  of  his  mother,  which 
he  had  worn  several  times  at  public  dinners  given  by  the 


6  The  Squirrel-Cage 

city  Board  of  Trade  and  once  at  a  dancing  party  at  the 
home  of  the  head  of  his  firm.  However,  the  hard  sense 
which  made  him  successful  in  his  business  kept  him  from 
a  final  absurdity  now.  He  had  been  seen,  and  he  decided 
grimly  that  he  would  be,  on  the  whole,  a  shade  more  laugh- 
able if  he  appeared  later  in  a  changed  costume. 

He  was  twenty-one  years  old  at  that  time ;  he  considered 
himself  a  man  grown.  He  had  been  in  business  for  five 
years  and  his  foot  was  already  set  firmly  on  the  ladder  of 
commercial  success  on  which  he  was  to  mount  high,  but  not 
for  nothing  had  he  felt  about  him  all  his  life  the  inextin- 
guishable desire  of  his  family  to  outgrow  rusticity.  He 
chided  himself  for  unmanly  pettiness,  but  the  fact  remained 
that  throughout  the  interminable  evening  the  sight  of  his 
gray  striped  trousers  or  colored  cuffs  affected  him  to  a 
chagrin  that  was  like  a  wave  of  physical  nausea.  Four 
years  later  he  had  married  a  handsome  young  lady  from 
among  the  Hollister  connections,  and,  moving  away  to 
Cleveland,  where  no  memory  of  his  antecedents  could  handi- 
cap him,  had  begun  a  new  social  career  as  eminently  suc- 
cessful as  his  rapid  commercial  expansion.  He  forced  him- 
self sometimes  to  think  of  that  long-past  evening  as  one 
presses  on  a  scar  to  learn  how  much  soreness  is  left  in  an 
old  wound,  and  he  smiled  at  the  little  tragedy  of  egotism  it 
had  been  to  him.  But  it  was  a  wry  smile. 

A  brighter  recollection  to  all  the  Emery s  was  the  justly 
complacent  and  satisfied  remembrance  of  the  house  grounds 
during  the  first  really  successful  social  event  they  had 
achieved.  It  was  a  lawn-fete,  given  for  the  benefit  of  St. 
Luke's  church,  which  Mrs.  Emery  and  Marietta  had  re- 
cently joined.  Socially,  it  was  the  first  fruits  of  their  con- 
version from  Congregationalism.  The  weather  was  fine, 
the  roses  were  out,  the  very  best  people  were  there,  the 
bazaar  was  profitable,  and  the  dowager  of  the  Hollister 
matrons  had  spoken  warm  words  of  admiration  of  the  com- 
petent way  in  which  the  occasion  had  been  managed  to 
Mrs.  Emery,  smiling  and  flushed  in  an  indomitably  self- 
respecting  pleasure.  The  older  Emerys  still  sometimes 


An  American  Family  7 

spoke  of  that  afternoon  and  evening  as  parents  remember 
the  hour  when  their  baby  first  walked  alone,  with  some- 
thing of  the  same  mixture  of  pride  in  the  later  achievements 
of  the  child  and  of  tenderness  for  its  early  weakness. 

The  youngest  of  the  Emery s,  many  years  the  junior  of  her 
brothers  and  sister,  knew  nothing  at  all  of  the  anxious  bit- 
ter-sweet of  these  early  endeavors  for  sophistication.  By 
the  time  she  came  to  conscious,  individual  life  the  summit 
had  been  virtually  reached.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
Lydia  had  witnessed  several  abrupt  changes  in  the  family 
ideal  of  household  decoration  or  of  entertaining,  but  since 
they  were  exactly  contemporaneous  with  similar  changes 
on  the  part  of  the  Hollisters  and  other  people  in  their 
circle,  these  revolutions  of  taste  brought  with  them  no 
sense  of  humiliation.  Such,  for  instance,  was  the  substi- 
tution for  carpets  of  hard-wood  floors  and  rugs  as  oriental 
as  the  purse  would  allow.  Lydia  could  remember  gor- 
geously flowered  carpets  on  every  Emery  floor,  but  since 
they  also  covered  all  the  prosperous  floors  in  town  at  the 
same  time,  it  was  not  more  painful  to  have  found  them 
attractive  than  to  have  worn  immensely  large  sleeves  or 
preposterously  blousing  shirt  waists,  to  have  ridden  bicycles, 
or  read  E.  P.  Roe,  or  anything  else  that  everybody  used 
to  do  and  did  no  more.  She  could  remember,  also,  when 
charades  and  book-parties  were  considered  amusing  pas- 
times for  grown-ups,  but  in  passing  beyond  these  primitive 
tastes  the  Emerys  had  been  well  abreast  of  their  contempo- 
raries. The  last  charade  party  had  not  been  held  in  their 
parlors,  they  congratulated  themselves. 

A  philosophic  observer  who  had  known  the  history  of 
Mrs.  Emery's  life  might  have  found  something  pathetic 
in  her  pleasure  at  Lydia's  light-hearted  jesting  at  the  funny 
old  things  people  used  to  think  pretty  and  the  absurd  pur- 
suits they  used  to  think  entertaining.  It  was  to  her  a 
symbol  that  her  daughter  had  escaped  what  had  caused  her 
so  much  suffering,  the  uneasy,  self-distrusting  dread  lest 
she  might  still  be  finding  pretty  things  that  up-to-date  peo- 
ple thought  grotesque;  lest  suddenly  what  she  had  toiled 


8  The  Squirrel-Cage 

so  painfully  to  obtain  should  somehow  turn  out  to  be  not 
the  "  right  thing  "  after  all.  Marietta  did  not  recall  more 
vividly  than  did  her  mother  the  trying  period  that  had 
elapsed  between  their  new  enlightenment  on  the  subject 
of  chromos  and  the  day  when  an  unexpected  large  fee  from 
a  client  of  Mr.  Emery  (not  yet  Judge)  enabled  them  to 
hang  their  Protestant  walls  with  engravings  of  pagan  gods 
and  Roman  Catholic  saints.  For  their  problem  had  never 
been  the  simple  one  of  merely  discovering  the  right  thing. 
There  had  always  been  added  to  it  the  complication  of 
securing  the  right  thing  out  of  an  income  by  no  means  limit- 
less. The  head  of  the  household  had  enjoyed  the  success 
that  might  have  been  predicted  from  his  whole-souled  ab- 
sorption in  his  profession,  but  Judge  Emery  came  of  old- 
fashioned  rural  stock  with  inelastic  ideas  of  honesty,  and 
though  he  was  more  than  willing  to  toil  early  and  late 
to  supply  funds  for  his  family  and  satisfy  whatever  form 
of  ambition  his  women-folk  might  decree  to  be  the  best 
one,  he  was  not  willing  to  take  advantage  of  the  perqui- 
sites of  his  position,  and  never,  as  the  phrase  in  the  town 
ran,  "  made  on  the  side."  Of  his  temptations  and  of  his 
stout  resistance  to  them,  his  wife  and  children  knew  no 
more,  naturally,  than  of  any  of  the  other  details  of  his  pro- 
fessional life,  which,  according  to  the  custom  of  their 
circle,  were  as  remote  and  hidden  from  them  as  if  he  had 
departed  each  morning  after  his  hearty  early  breakfast 
into  another  planet;  but  his  wife  was  proud  of  the  integrity 
which  she  divined  in  her  husband  and,  as  she  often  declared 
roundly  to  Marietta,  would  not  have  exchanged  his  good 
name  for  a  much  larger  income. 

Indeed,  the  acridity  which  for  Marietta  lingered  about 
the  recollection  of  their  efforts  to  make  themselves  over 
did  not  exist  in  the  more  amply  satisfied  mind  of  her  mother. 
The  difference  showed  itself  visibly  in  the  contrast  between 
the  daughter's  face,  stamped  with  a  certain  tired,  unflagging 
intensity  of  endeavor,  and  the  freshness  of  the  older  woman. 
At  thirty-two,  Marietta  looked,  perhaps,  no  older  than  her 
age,  but  obviously  more  worn  by  the  strain  of  life  than 


An  American  Family  9 

her  mother  at  fifty-six.  Sometimes,  as  she  noted  in  her 
mirror  the  sharp  lines  of  a  fatigue  that  was  almost  bitter- 
ness, she  experienced  a  certain  unnerving  uncertainty,  a 
total  lack  of  zest  for  what  she  so  eagerly  struggled  to 
attain,  and  she  envied  her  mother's  single-minded  satisfac- 
tion in  getting  what  she  wanted. 

Mrs.  Emery  had  enjoyed  the  warfare  of  her  life  heartily; 
the  victories  for  their  own  sake,  the  defeats  because  they  had 
spurred  her  on  to  fresh  and  finally  successful  efforts,  and 
the  remembrance  of  both  was  sweet  to  her.  She  loved  her 
husband  for  himself  and  for  what  he  had  been  able  to  give 
her,  and  she  loved  her  children  ardently,  although  she  had 
been  sorely  vexed  by  her  second  son's  unfortunate  mar- 
riage. He  had  always  been  a  discordant  note  in  the  family 
concert,  the  veiled,  unconscious,  uneasy  skepticism  of 
Marietta  bursting  out  openly  in  Henry  as  a  careless,  laugh- 
ing cynicism,  excessively  disconcerting  to  his  mother.  She 
sometimes  thought  he  had  married  the  grocer's  daughter 
out  of  "  contrariness."  The  irritation  which  surrounded 
that  event,  and  the  play  of  cross-purposes  and  discord  which 
had  filled  the  period  until  the  misguided  young  people  had 
voluntarily  exiled  themselves  to  the  Far  West,  remained 
more  of  a  sore  spot  in  Mrs.  Emery's  mind  than  any  blow 
given  or  taken  in  her  life-long  campaign  for  distinction. 
She  admitted  frankly  to  herself  that  it  was  a  relief  that 
Harry  was  no  longer  near  her,  although  her  mother's  heart 
ached  for  the  Harry  he  had  seemed  to  her  before  his  re- 
bellion. She  fancied  that  she  would  enjoy  him  as  of  old 
if  the  litter  of  inconvenient  persons  and  facts  lying  between 
them  could  but  be  cleared  away ;  with  a  voluntary  blindness 
not  uncommon  in  parents,  refusing  to  recognize  that  these 
superficial  differences  were  only  the  outward  expression  of 
a  fundamental  alienation  within.  At  all  events,  it  was 
futile  to  speculate  about  the  matter,  since  the  width  of  the 
continent  and  her  son's  intense  distaste  for  letter-writing 
separated  them.  She  had  come,  therefore,  to  turn  all  her 
attention  and  proud  affection  on  her  youngest  child. 

It  seemed  to  her  sometimes  that  Lydia  had  been  granted 


to  The  Squirrel-Cage 

her  by  a  merciful  Providence  in  order  that  she  might  make 
that  "  fresh  start  all  over  again  "  which  is  the  never-real- 
ized ideal  of  erring  humanity.  Marietta  had  been  a  young 
lady  fourteen  years  before,  and  fourteen  years  meant  much 
—  meant  everything  to  people  who  progressed  as  fast  as 
the  Emerys.  Uncertain  of  themselves,  they  had  not  ven- 
tured to  launch  Marietta  boldly  upon  the  waves  of  a  society 
the  chart  of  which  was  so  new  to  them.  She  had  no  coming- 
out  party.  She  simply  put  on  long  skirts,  coiled  her  black 
hair  on  top  of  her  head,  and  began  going  to  evening  parties 
with  a  few  young  men  who  were  amused  by  the  tart  brisk- 
ness of  her  tongue  and  attracted  by  the  comeliness  of  her 
healthful  youth.  She  had  married  the  first  man  who  pro- 
posed to  her  —  a  young  insurance  agent.  Since  then  they 
had  lived  in  a  very  comfortable,  middling  state  of  harmony, 
apparently  on  about  the  same  social  scale  as  Marietta's 
parents.  That  this  feat  was  accomplished  on  a  much 
smaller  income  was  due  to  Marietta's  unrivaled  instinct  and 
trained  capacity  for  keeping  up  appearances. 

All  this  history  had  been  creditable,  but  nothing  more; 
and  Mrs.  Emery  often  looked  at  her  elder  daughter  with 
compunction  for  her  own  earlier  ignorance  and  helplessness. 
She  could  have  done  so  much  more  for  Marietta  if  she 
had  only  known  how.  Mrs.  Mortimer  was,  however,  a 
•rather  prickly  personality  with  whom  to  attempt  to  sympa- 
thize, and  in  general  her  mother  felt  the  usual  -in-law  con- 
clusion about  her  daughter's  life:  that  Marietta  could  un- 
doubtedly have  done  better  than  to  marry  her  industrious, 
negligible  husband,  but  that,  on  the  whole,  she  might  have 
done  worse ;  and  it  was  much  to  be  hoped  that  her  little  boy 
would  resemble  the  Emerys  and  not  the  Mortimers. 

No  such  philosophical  calm  restrained  her  emotions  about 
Lydia.  She  was  in  positive  beauty  and  charm  all  that  poor 
Marietta  had  not  been,  and  she  was  to  have  in  the  way  of 
backing  and  management  all  that  poor  Marietta  had  lacked. 
It  seemed  to  Mrs.  Emery  that  her  whole  life  had  been  de- 
voted to  learning  what  to  do  and  what  not  to  do  for 
Lydia.  As  the  time  of  action  drew  nearer  she  nerved  her- 


An  American  Family  n 

self  for  the  compaign  with  a  finely  confident  feeling  that 
she  knew  every  inch  of  the  ground.  Her  expectancy  grew 
more  and  more  tense  as  her  eagerness  rose.  During  the 
long  year  that  Lydia  was  in  Europe,  receiving  a  final  gloss, 
even  higher  than  that  imparted  by  the  expensive  and  ex- 
clusive girls'  school  where  she  had  spent  the  years  between 
fourteen  and  eighteen,  Mrs.  Emery  laid  her  plans  and 
arranged  her  life  with  a  fervent  devotion  to  one  end  — 
the  success  of  Lydia's  first  season  in  society.  Every  room 
in  the  house  seemed  to  her  vision  to  stand  in  a  bright  vacancy 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  debutante. 


CHAPTER  II 
AMERICAN  BEAUTIES 

ON  the  morning  of  Lydia's  long-expected  return,  as 
Mrs.  Emery  moved  restlessly  about  the  large  double  parlors 
opening  out  on  a  veranda  where  the  vines  were  already 
golden  in  the  September  sunlight,  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
very  walls  were  blank  in  hushed  eagerness  and  that  the 
chairs  and  tables  turned  faces  like  hers,  tired  with  patience, 
toward  the  open  door.  She  had  not  realized  until  the  long 
separation  was  almost  over  how  unendurably  she  had  missed 
her  baby  girl,  as  she  still  thought  of  the  tall  girl  of  nineteen. 
She  could  not  wait  the  few  hours  that  were  left.  Her  forti- 
tude had  given  way  just  too  soon.  She  must  have  the  dear 
child  now,  now,  in  her  arms. 

She  moved  absently  a  spray  of  goldenrod  which  hid  a 
Fra  Angelico  angel  over  the  mantel  and  noted  with  dramatic 
self-pity  that  her  hand  was  trembling.  She  sat  down  sud- 
denly, and  lost  herself  in  a  vain  attempt  to  recall  the  well- 
beloved  sound  of  Lydia's  fresh  young  voice.  A  knot  came 
in  her  throat,  and  she  covered  her  face  with  her  large, 
white,  carefully-manicured  hands. 

Marietta  came  in  briskly  a  few  moments  later,  bringing 
a  bouquet  of  asters  from  her  own  garden.  She  was 
dressed,  as  always,  with  a  severe  reticence  in  color  and 
line  which,  though  due  to  her  extreme  need  for  economy, 
nevertheless  gave  to  the  rather  spare  outlines  of  her  tall 
figure  a  distinction,  admired  by  Endbury  under  the  name 
of  stylishness.  Her  rapid  step  had  carried  her  half-way 
across  the  wide  room  before  she  saw  to  her  surprise  that 
her  mother,  usually  so  self-contained,  was  giving  way  to  an 
in>  -xplicable  emotion. 

12 


American  Beauties  13 

"  Good  gracious,  Mother ! "  she  began  in  the  energetic 
fashion  which  was  apt  to  make  her  most  neutral  remarks 
sound  combative. 

Mrs.  Emery  dried  her  eyes  with  a  gesture  of  protest, 
adjusted  her  gray  pompadour  deftly,  and  cut  off  her  daugh- 
ter's remonstrance,  "  Oh,  you  needn't  tell  me  I'm  foolish, 
Marietta.  I  know  it.  I  just  suddenly  got  so  impatient  it 
didn't  seem  as  though  I  could  wait  another  minute ! " 

The  younger  woman  accepted  this  explanation  of  the  tears 
with  a  murmured  sound  of  somewhat  enigmatic  intonation. 
Her  thin  dark  face  settled  into  a  repose  that  had  a  little 
grimness  in  it.  She  began  putting  the  flowers  into  a  vase 
that  stood  between  the  reproduction  of  a  Giotto  Madonna 
and  a  Japanese  devil-hunt,  both  results  of  the  study  of  art 
taken  up  during  the  past  winter  by  her  mother's  favorite 
woman's  club.  Mrs.  Emery  watched  the  process  in  the 
contemplative  relief  which  follows  an  emotional  outbreak, 
and  her  eyes  wandered  to  the  objects  on  either  side  the 
vase.  The  sight  stirred  her  to  speech.  "  Oh,  Marietta, 
how  do  you  suppose  the  house  will  seem  to  Lydia  after 
she  has  seen  so  much?  I  hope  she  won't  be  disappointed. 
I've  done  so  much  to  it  this  last  year,  perhaps  she  won't 
like  it  And  Oh,  I  was  so  tried  because  we  weren't  able  to 
get  the  new  sideboard  put  up  in  the  dining-room  yester- 
day!" 

Mrs.  Mortimer  glanced  without  smiling  at  a  miniature 
of  her  sister,  blooming  in  a  shrine-like  arrangement  on  her 
mother's  writing-desk.  She  shook  her  dark  head  with  a 
gesture  like  her  father's,  and  said  with  his  blunt  decisive- 
ness, "  Really,  Mother,  you  must  draw  the  line  about  Lydia. 
She's  only  human.  I  guess  if  the  house  is  good  enough  for 
you  and  father  it  is  good  enough  for  her." 

She  crossed  the  room  toward  the  door  with  a  brisk 
rattle  of  starched  skirts,  but  as  she  passed  her  mother  her 
hand  was  caught  and  held.  "  That's  just  it,  Marietta  — 
that's  just  what  came  over  me!  Is  what's  good  enough 
for  us  good  enough  for  Lydia?  Won't  anything,  even  the 
best,  in  Endbury  be  a  come-down  for  her  ?  " 


14  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  slightly  irritated  impatience  with  which  Mrs.  Morti- 
mer had  listened  to  the  first  words  of  this  speech  gave  way 
to  a  shrewd  amusement.  "  You  mean  that  you've  put 
Lydia  up  on  such  a  high  plane  to  begin  with  that  whichever 
way  she  goes  will  be  a  step  down,"  she  asked. 

"  Yes,  yes ;  that's  just  it,"  breathed  her  mother,  uncon- 
scious of  any  irony  in  her  daughter's  accent.  She  fixed  her 
eyes,  which,  in  spite  of  her  having  long  since  passed  the 
half-century  mark,  were  still  very  clear  and  blue,  anxiously 
upon  Marietta's  opaque  dark  ones.  She  felt  not  only  a 
need  to  be  reassured  in  general  by  anyone,  but  a  reluctant 
faith  in  the  younger  woman's  judgment. 

Marietta  released  herself  with  a  laugh  that  was  like  a 
light,  mocking  tap  on  her  mother's  shoulder.  "  Well,  folks 
that  haven't  got  real  worries  will  certainly  manufacture 
them!  To  worry  about  Lydia's  future  in  Endbury! 
Aren't  you  afraid  the  sun  won't  rise  some  day?  If  ever 
there  was  any  girl  that  had  a  smooth  road  in  front  of 
her — " 

The  door-bell  rang.  "  They've  come !  They've  come !  " 
cried  Mrs.  Emery  wildly. 

"  Lydia  wouldn't  ring  the  bell,  and  her  train  isn't  due  till 
ten,"  Mrs.  Mortimer  reminded  her. 

"  Oh,  yes.  Well,  then,  it's  the  new  sideboard.  I  am 
so—" 

"  It's  a  boy  with  a  big  pasteboard  box,"  contradicted  Mrs. 
Mortimer,  looking  down  the  hall  to  the  open  front  door. 

Seeing  someone  there  to  receive  it,  the  boy  set  the  box 
inside  the  screen  door  and  started  down  the  steps. 

"  Bring  it  here !  Bring  it  here !  "  called  Mrs.  Mortimer, 
commandingly. 

"  It's  for  Lydia,"  said  Mrs.  Emery,  looking  at  the  ad- 
dress. She  spoke  with  an  accent  of  dramatic  intensity,  and 
a  flush  rose  to  her  fair  cheeks. 

Her  olive-skinned  daughter  looked  at  her  and  laughed. 
"  What  did  you  expect  ?  " 

"  But  he  didn't  care  enough  about  her  coming  home  to  be 


American  Beauties  15 

in  town  to-day ! "  Mrs.  Emery's  maternal  vanity  flared  up 
hotly. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  laughed  again  and  began  taking  the  layers 
of  crumpled  wax-paper  out  of  the  box.  "  Oh,  that  was  the 
trouble  with  you,  was  it?  That's  nothing.  He  had  to  be 
away  to  see  about  a  new  electrical  plant  in  Dayton.  Did 
you  ever  know  Paul  Hollister  to  let  anything  interfere  with 
business  ? "  This  characterization  was  delivered  with  an 
intonation  that  made  it  the  most  manifest  praise. 

Her  mother  seconded  it  with  unquestioning  acquiescence. 
"  No,  that's  a  fact ;  I  never  did." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  in  her  turn  had  an  accent  of  dramatic 
intensity  as  she  cried  out,  "  Oh !  they  are  American  Beauties ! 
The  biggest  I  ever  saw ! " 

The  two  women  looked  at  the  flowers,  almost  awe-struck 
at  their  size. 

"  Have  you  a  vase?  "  Mrs.  Mortimer  asked  dubiously. 

Mrs.  Emery  rose  to  the  occasion.  "  The  Japanese  um- 
brella stand." 

There  was  a  pause  as  they  reverently  arranged  the  great 
sheaf  of  enormous  flowers.  Then  Mrs.  Emery  began, 
"  Marietta  —  "  She  hesitated. 

"  Well,"  Mrs.  Mortimer  prompted  her,  a  little  impatiently. 

"  Do  you  really  think  that  he  —  that  Lydia  — ?  " 

Marietta  accepted  with  a  somewhat  pinched  smile  her 
mother's  boundary  lines  of  reticence.  "  Of  course.  Did 
you  ever  know  Paul  Hollister  to  give  up  anything  he 
wanted  ?  " 

Her  mother  shook  her  head. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  rose  with  a  "Well,  then!"  and  the  air; 
of  one  who  has  said  all  there  is  to  be  said  on  a  subject, 
and  again  crossed  the  room  toward  the  door.  Her  mother 
drifted  aimlessly  in  that  direction  also,  as  though  swept 
along  by  the  other's  energy. 

"  Well,  it's  a  pity  he  is  not  here  now,  anyhow,"  she  said, 
adding  in  a  spirited  answer  to  her  daughter's  expression, 
"  Now,  you  needn't  look  that  way,  Marietta.  You 


i6  The  Squirrel-Cage 

yourself  that  Lydia  is  very  romantic  and  'fanciful.  It 
would  be  a  very  different  matter  if  she  were  like  Madeleine 
Hollister.  She  wouldn't  need  any  managing." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  smiled  at  the  idea.  "  Yes,  I'd  like  to 
see  somebody  try  to  manage  Paul's  sister,"  she  commented. 

"They  wouldn't  have  to,"  her  mother  pointed  out, 
"  she's  so  level-headed  and  sane.  But  Lydia's  different. 
It's  part  of  her  loveliness,  of  course,  only  you  do  have  to 
manage  her.  And  she'll  be  in  a  very  unsettled  state  for  the 
first  week  or  two  after  she  gets  home  after  such  a  long 
absence.  The  impressions  she  gets  then  —  well,  I  wish  he 
were  here ! " 

Mrs.  Mortimer  waved  her  hand  toward  the  roses. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  assented  her  mother,  subsiding 
peaceably  down  the  scale  from  anxiety  to  confidence  with 
the  phrase.  She  looked  at  the  monstrous  flowers  with  the 
gaze  of  acquired  admiration  so  usual  in  her  eyes.  "  They 
don't  look  much  like  roses,  do  they  ?  "  she  remarked  irrele- 
vantly. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  turned  in  the  doorway,  her  face  ex- 
pressing an  extreme  surprise.  "  Good  gracious,  no,"  she 
cried.  "  Why,  of  course  not.  They  cost  a  dollar  and  a 
half  apiece." 

She  did  not  stop  to  hear  her  mother's  vaguely  assenting 
reply.  Mrs.  Emery  heard  her  firm,  rapid  tread  go  down 
the  hall  to  the  front  door  and  then  suddenly  stop.  Some- 
thing indefinable  about  the  pause  that  followed  made  the 
mother's  heart  beat  thickly.  "What  is  it,  Marietta?"  she 
called,  but  her  voice  was  lost  in  Mrs.  Mortimer's  exclama- 
tion of  surprise,  "  Why  it  can't  be  —  why,  Lydia ! " 

As  from  a  great  distance,  the  mother  heard  a  confused 
rush  in  the  hall,  and  then,  piercing  through  the  dreamlike 
unreality  of  the  moment,  came  the  sweet,  high  note  of  a 
girl's  voice,  laughing,  but  with  the  liquid  uncertainty  of 
tears  quivering  through  the  mirth.  "  Oh,  Marietta ! 
Where's  Mother  ?  Aren't  you  all  slow-pokes  —  not  a  soul 
to  meet  us  at  the  train  —  where's  Mother?  Where's 
Mother?  Where's — "  The  room  swam  around  Mrs. 


American  Beauties  17 

Emery  as  she  stood  up  looking  toward  the  door,  and  the 
girl  who  came  running  in,  her  dark  eyes  shining  with  happy 
tears,  was  not  more  real  than  the  many  visions  of  her  that 
had  haunted  her  mother's  imagination  during  the  lonely 
year  of  separation.  At  the  clasp  of  the  young  arms  about 
her,  her  face  took  light  as  from  an  inner  source,  and  breath 
came  back  to  her  in  a  sudden  gasp.  She  tried  to  speak,  but 
the  only  word  that  came  was  "  Lydia !  Lydia !  Lydia !  " 

The  girl  laughed,  a  half -sob  breaking  her  voice  as  she 
answered  whimsically,  "  Well,  who  did  you  expect  to  see  ?  " 

Mrs.  Mortimer  performed  her  usual  function  of  re- 
lieving emotional  tension  by  putting  a  strong  hand  on 
Lydia's  shoulder  and  spinning  her  about.  "  Come !  I 
want  to  see  if  it  is  you  —  and  how  you  look." 

For  a  moment  the  ardent  young  creature  stood  still  in 
a  glowing  quiet.  She  drank  in  the  dazzled  gaze  of  admira- 
tion of  the  two  women  with  an  innocent  delight.  The 
tears  were  still  in  Mrs.  Emery's  eyes,  but  she  did  not  raise 
a  hand  to  dry  them,  smitten  motionless  by  the  extremity 
of  her  proud  satisfaction.  Never  again  did  Lydia  look 
to  her  as  she  did  at  that  moment,  like  something  from  an- 
other sphere,  like  some  bright,  unimaginably  happy  being, 
freed  from  the  bonds  that  had  always  weighed  so  heavily 
on  all  the  world  about  her  mother. 

Before  she  could  draw  breath,  Lydia  moved  and  was 
changed.  Her  mother  saw  suddenly,  with  that  emotion 
which  only  mothers  know,  reminiscences  of  little-girl- 
hood, of  babyhood,  even  of  long-dead  cousins  and  aunts, 
in  the  lovely  face  blooming  under  the  wide  hat.  She  felt 
the  sweet  momentary  confusion  of  individuality,  the  satis- 
fied sense  of  complete  ownership  which  accompanies  a 
strong  belief  in  family  ties.  Lydia  was  not  only  alto- 
gether entrancing,  but  she  was  of  the  same  stuff  with 
those  who  loved  her  so  dearly.  It  gave  a  deeper  note  to 
her  mother's  passion  of  affectionate  pride. 

The  girl  turned  with  a  pretty,  defiant  tilt  of  her  head. 
"  Well,  and  how  do  I  look  ? "  she  asked ;  and  before  she 
could  be  answered  she  flew  at  Mrs.  Mortimer  with  a  gentle 


i8  The  Squirrel-Cage 

roughness,  clasping  her  arms  around  her  waist  until  the 
matron  gasped.  "  You  look  too  good  to  be  true  —  both  of 
you  —  if  you  are  such  lazybones  that  you  wouldn't  go  to 
the  station  to  meet  the  prodigal  daughter !  " 

"  Well,  if  you  will  come  on  an  earlier  train  than  you 
telegraphed  — "  began  Mrs.  Mortimer,  "  Everybody's  get- 
ting ready  to  meet  you  with  a  brass  band.  What  did  you 
do  with  Father?" 

The  girl  moved  away,  putting  her  hands  up  to  her  hat 
uncertainly  as  though  about  to  take  out  the  hat-pins. 
There  was  between  the  three  a  moment  of  that  constraint 
which  accompanies  the  transition  from  emotional  intensity 
down  to  an  everyday  level.  In  Lydia's  voice  there  was 
even  a  little  flatness  as  she  answered,  "  Oh,  he  put  me  in 
the  hack  and  went  off  to  see  about  business.  I  heard 
him  'phoning  something  to  somebody  about  a  suit.  We 
got  through  the  customs  sooner  than  we  thought  we  could, 
you  see,  and  caught  an  earlier  train." 

Mrs.  Emery  turned  her  adoring  gaze  from  Lydia's  slim 
beauty  and  looked  inquiringly  at  her  elder  daughter. 
Mrs.  Mortimer  understood,  and  nodded. 

"  What  are  you  two  making  faces  about  ?  "  Lydia  turned 
in  time  to  catch  the  interchange  of  glances. 

Mrs.  Emery  hesitated.  Marietta  spoke  with  a  crisp 
straightforwardness  which  served  as  well  in  this  case  as 
nonchalance  for  keeping  her  remark  without  undue  sig- 
nificance. "  We  were  just  wondering  if  now  wasn't  a 
good  time  to  show  you  what  Paul  Hollister  did  for  your 
welcome  home.  He  couldn't  be  here  himself,  so  he  sent 
those."  She  nodded  toward  the  bouquet. 

As  Lydia  turned  toward  the  flowers  her  two  elders 
fixed  her  with  the  unscrupulously  scrutinizing  gaze  of 
blood-relations;  but  their  microscopic  survey  showed  them 
nothing  in  the  girl's  face,  already  flushed  and  excited  by 
her  home-coming,  beyond  a  sudden  amused  surprise  at  the 
grotesque  size  of  the  tribute. 

"  Why,  for  mercy's  sake !    Did  you  ever  see  such  mon- 


American  Beauties  19  • 

sters !  They  are  as  big  as  my  head !  Look ! "  She 
whirled  her  hat  from  the  pretty  disorder  of  her  brown  hair 
and  poised  it  on  the  topmost  of  the  great  flowers,  stepping 
back  to  see  the  effect  and  laughing,  "  They  don't  look  any 
more  like  roses,  do  they  ? "  she  added,  turning  to  her 
mother.  Mrs.  Emery's  answer  rose  so  spontaneously  to 
her  lips  that  she  was  not  aware  that  she  was  echoing 
Marietta.  "  Good  gracious,  no ;  of  course  not.  They 
cost  a  dollar  and  a  half  apiece." 

Lydia  neither  assented  to  nor  dissented  from  this 
apothegm.  It  started  another  train  of  thought  in  her  mind. 
"As  much  as  all  that!  Why,  Paul  oughtn't  to  be  so  ex- 
travagant! He  can't  afford  it,  and  I  should  have  liked 
something  else  just  as  — " 

Her  sister  broke  in  with  an  ample  gesture  of  negation. 
"  You  don't  know  Paul.  If  he  goes  on  the  way  he's 
started  —  he's  district  sales  manager  for  southern  Ohio 
already." 

Lydia  paid  to  this  information  the  passing  tribute  of  a 
moment's  uncomprehending  surprise.  "  Think  of  that ! 
The  last  time  Paul  told  me  about  himself  he  was  working 
day  and  night  in  Schenectady,  learning  the  business,  and 
getting  —  oh,  I  don't  know  —  fifty  cents  an  hour,  or  some 
such  starvation  wages." 

Mrs.  Mortimer's  bitterly  acquired  sense  of  values  re- 
volted at  this.  "What  are  you  talking  about,  Lydia? 
Fifty  cents  an  hour  starvation  wages !  " 

"  Well,  perhaps  it  was  five  cents  an  hour.  I  don't  re- 
member. And  he  worked  with  his  hands  and  was  always 
in  danger  of  getting  shot  through  with  a  million  volts  of 
electricity  or  mashed  with  a  breaking  fly-wheel  or  some- 
thing. He  said  electricians  were  the  soldiers  of  modern 
civilization.  I  told  that  to  a  German  woman  we  met  on  the 
boat  when  she  said  Americans  have  no  courage  because 
they  don't  fight  duels.  The  idea !  " 

She  began  pulling  off  her  gloves,  with  a  quick  energetic 
gesture.  Mrs.  Mortimer  went  on,  "  Well,  he  certainly  has 


2O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

a  brilliant  future  before  him.  Everybody  says  that — " 
She  stopped,  struck  by  her  rather  heavy  emphasis  on  the 
theme  and  by  a  curious  look  from  Lydia.  The  girl  did  not 
blush,  she  did  not  seem  embarrassed,  but  for  a  moment  the 
childlike  clarity  of  her  look  was  clouded  by  an  expression 
of  consciousness. 

Mrs.  Emery  made  a  rush  upon  her,  drawing  her  away 
toward  the  door  with  a  displeased  look  at  Marietta. 
"  Never  mind  about  Paul's  prospects,"  she  said.  "  With 
Lydia  just  this  minute  home,  to  begin  gossiping  about  the 
neighbors !  Come  up  to  your  room,  darling,  and  see  the 
little  outdoor  sitting-room  we've  had  fixed  over  the  porch." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  was  not  given  to  bearing  chagrin,  even 
a  passing  one,  with  undue  self-restraint.  She  threw  into 
the  intonation  of  her  next  sentence  her  resentment  at  the 
rebuke  from  her  mother.  "  I  still  live,  you  know,  even 
if  Lydia  has  come  home ! "  As  Mrs.  Emery  turned  with 
a  look  of  apology,  she  added,  "  Oh,  I  only  wanted  to  make 
you  turn  around  so  that  I  could  tell  you  that  I  am  going 
to  bring  my  two  men-folks  over  here  to-night,  to  the 
gathering  of  the  clans,  and  that  I  must  go  home  until 
then.  Dr.  Melton  and  Aunt  Julia  are  coming,  aren't 
they?" 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  cried  Lydia.  "  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  I  can 
wait  to  see  Godfather.  I  sort  of  half  hoped  he  might 
be  here  now." 

"Well,  Lydia!"  her  mother  reproached  her  jealously. 

"  Oh,  you  might  as  well  give  in,  Mother,  Lydia  likes 
the  little  old  doctor  better  than  any  of  the  rest  of  us." 

"  He  talks  to  me,"  said  Lydia  defensively. 

"  We  never  say  a  word,"  commented  Mrs.  Mortimer. 

Lydia  broke  away  from  her  mother's  close  clasp  and  ran 
back  to  her  sister.  She  was  always  running,  as  though  to 
keep  up  with  the  rapidity  of  her  swift  impulses.  She  held 
her  subtly-curved  cheek  up  to  the  other's  strongly-marked 
face.  "  You  just  kiss  me,  Etta  dear,"  she  pleaded  softly, 
"  and  stop  teasing." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  looked  long  into  the  clear  dark  eyes  with 


American  Beauties  21 

an  unmoved  countenance.  Then  her  face  melted  suddenly 
till  she  looked  like  her  mother.  She  put  her  arms  about 
the  girl  with  a  fervent  gesture  of  tenderness.  "  Dear  little 
Lydia,"  she  murmured,  with  a  quaver  in  her  voice. 


CHAPTER  III 
PICKING  UP  THE  THREADS 

AFTER  she  was  alone  she  looked  again  at  the  miniature 
z>f  Lydia.  The  youthful  radiance  of  the  face  had  singularly 
the  effect  of  a  perfect  flower.  Mrs.  Mortimer  glanced  at 
the  hat  still  drooping  its  wide  brim  over  the  rose  where 
Lydia  had  forgotten  it,  and  stood  still  in  a  reverie  that  had, 
from  her  aspect,  something  of  sadness  in  it.  After  a  mo- 
ment she  sighed  out,  "  Poor  little  Lydia !  " 

"  What's  the  matter  with  Lydia  ? "  asked  someone  be- 
hind her. 

She  turned  and  faced  a  dark,  elderly  personage,  the  ro- 
bust dignity  of  whose  bearing  was  now  tempered  with 
shamefacedness.  Mrs.  Mortimer's  face  sharpened  in  af- 
fectionate malice.  "  What  are  you  doing  here  at  this  hour 
of  the  morning  ?  "  she  asked  with  a  humorously  exagger- 
ated air  of  amazement.  "  No  self-respecting  man  is  ever 
seen  in  his  house  during  business  hours !  "  She  went  on, 
"  Oh,  I  know  well  enough.  You  let  Mother  have  her 
first  to  make  up  for  her  being  sick  and  not  able  to  go  to 
meet  her  ship ;  but  you  can't  stay  away." 

The  Judge  waved  her  raillery  away  with  a  smile.  The 
physical  resemblance  between  father  and  daughter  was  re- 
markable. "  I  asked  you  what  was  the  matter  with  Lydia," 
he  repeated. 

Mrs.  Mortimer's  face  clouded.  "  Oh,  it's  a  hateful,  hor- 
rid sort  of  world  we're  all  so  eager  to  push  her  into.  It's 
like  a  can  full  of  angleworms,  everlastingly  squirming  and 
wriggling  to  get  to  the  top.  I  was  just  thinking  that  it 
would  be  better  for  her,  maybe,  if  she  could  always  stay 
a  little  girl  and  travel  'round  to  see  things." 

22 


Picking  Up  the  Threads  23 

"  Why,  Etta !  I  tell  you  I'm  glad  to  have  Lydia  get 
through  with  her  traveling  'round.  Maybe  I  can  see  some- 
thing of  her  if  I  hurry  up  and  do  it  now  before  your  mother 
gets  things  going.  I  won't  after  that,  of  course.  I  never 
have." 

To  this  his  daughter  had  one  of  her  abrupt,  disconcerting 
responses.  "  You'd  better  hurry  and  do  it  before  you  get 
so  deep  in  some  important  trial  that  you  wouldn't  know 
Lydia  from  a  plaster  image.  There  are  more  reasons  than 
just  Mother  and  card  parties  why  you  don't  see  much  of 
her,  I  guess." 

Judge  Emery  forbore  to  argue  the  point.  "  Where  are 
they  now  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  upstairs,  out  of  my  way.  Mother's  usual  state  of 
mind  about  Lydia  is  more  so  than  ever,  I  warn  you.  She 
thought  I  wasn't  refined  enough  company." 

"  Now,  Etta,  you  know  your  mother  never  thought  any 
such  thing." 

"  Well,  I  know  she  was  inconsistent,  whatever  she 
thought.  While  we  were  here  alone  she  was  speculating 
about  Paul  Hollister  like  anything.  And  yet,  because  I 
just  happened  to  mention  to  Lydia  that  he  is  getting  on 
in  the  world,  I  got  put  down  as  if  I'd  tried  to  make  her 
marry  him  for  his  prospects." 

There  was  an  edge  in  her  voice  which  her  father  depre- 
cated, rubbing  his  shaven  chin  mildly.  He  deplored  the 
appearance  of  a  flaw  in  the  smooth  surface  of  harmony  he 
loved  to  see  in  his  family. 

"  Well,  you  know,  Marietta,  we  aim  to  have  everything 
about  right  for  Lydia.  She's  all  we've  got  left  now  the 
rest  of  you  are  settled." 

The  deepening  of  the  careworn  lines  in  the  woman's  face 
seemed  a  justification  for  the  undisguised  bitterness  of  her 
answer.  "  I  don't  see  why  nobody  must  breathe  a  word 
to  her  about  what  everybody  knows  is  so.  What's  the  use 
of  pretending  that  we'd  be  satisfied  or  she'd  be  comfortable 
a  minute  if  Paul  didn't  promise  to  be  a  money-maker 
—  or  at  least  to  have  a  good  income  ?  " 


24  The  Squirrel-Cage 

She  turned  away  and  walked  rapidly  down  the  hall,  fol- 
lowed by  her  father,  half  apologetic,  half  reproachful. 
"  Why,  Daughter,  you  don't  grudge  your  sister !  We 
couldn't  do  so  much  for  you;  but  we're  better  off  since 
you  were  a  young  lady  and  we  want  Lydia  to  have  the 
benefit." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  paused  on  the  veranda  and  stood  looking 
in  a  troubled  silence  at  the  broad,  well-kept  lawn,  stretching 
down  to  the  asphalt  street,  shaded  by  vigorous  young 
maples.  Her  father  waited  for  her  to  speak,  too  good  a 
lawyer  to  spoil  by  superfluous  words  the  effect  of  a  well- 
calculated  appeal. 

Finally  she  turned  to  him  contritely.  "  I'm  hateful,  Dad, 
and  I'm  sorry.  Of  course  I  don't  grudge  dear  little  Lydia 
anything.  Only  I  have  a  pretty  hard  time  of  it  scratching 
along,  and  when  I'm  awfully  tired  of  contriving  and  cal- 
culating how  to  manage  somehow  and  anyhow,  it's  hard 
to  come  up  to  the  standard  of  saying  everything's  lovely 
that  you  and  Mother  want  for  Lydia." 

"  Anything  the  trouble  specially  ? "  asked  her  father 
guardedly. 

"  Oh,  no ;  same  old  thing.  Keeping  up  a  two-maid  and 
a  man  establishment  on  a  one-maid  income,  and  mostly  not 
being  able  to  hire  the  one  maid.  There  aren't  any  girls  to 
be  had  lately.  It  means  I  have  to  be  the  other  maid  and 
the  man  all  of  the  time,  and  all  three,  part  of  the  time." 
She  was  starting  down  the  step,  but  paused  as  though  she 
could  not  resist  the  relief  that  came  from  expression.  "  And 
the  cost  of  living  —  the  necessities  are  bad  enough,  but 
the  other  things  —  the  things  you  have  to  have  not  to 
be  out  of  everything!  I  lie  awake  nights.  I  think  of  it 
in  church.  I  can't  think  of  anything  else  but  the  way 
the  expenses  mount  up.  Everybody's  getting  so  reckless 
and  extravagant  and  I  won't  go  into  debt !  I'll  come  to  it, 
though.  Everybody  else  does !  We're  the  only  people  that 
haven't  oriental  rugs  now.  Why,  the  Gilberts  —  and  every- 
body knows  how  much  they  still  owe  Dr.  Melton  for  Ellen's 
appendicitis,  and  their  grocer  told  Ralph  they  owe  him 


Picking  Up  the  Threads  25 

several  hundred  dollars  —  well,  they  have  just  got  an 
oriental  rug  that  they  paid  a  hundred  and  sixty  dollars 
for.  Mrs.  Gilbert  said  they  '  just  had  to  have  it,  and  you 
can  always  have  what  you  have  to  have.'  It  makes  me 
sick!  Our  parlor  looks  so  common!  And  the  last  dinner 
party  we  gave  cost — "  She  detected  a  wavering  in  her 
father's  attention,  as  though  he  were  listening  for  sounds 
inside  the  house,  and  broke  off  abruptly  with  a  hurt  and 
impatient  "  Oh,  well,  no  matter !  "  and  ran  down  the  steps. 

Judge  Emery  called  after  with  a  relieved  belittling  of 
her  complaints,  "  Oh,  if  that's  all  you  mean.  Why,  that's 
half  the  fun.  I  remember  when  you  were  a  baby  your 
mother  did  the  washings  so  that  we  could  have  a  nurse 
to  take  you  out  with  the  other  children  and  their  nurses." 

Mrs.  Mortimer  was  palpably  out  of  earshot  before  he 
finished  his  exhortation,  so  he  wasted  no  more  breath  but 
turned  back  eagerly  in  response  to  a  call  from  Lydia,  who 
came  skimming  down  the  hall.  "  Oh,  Daddy  dearest,  it's 
a  jewel  of  a  little  sitting-room,  the  one  you  fixed  up  for 
me  —  and  Mother  says  we  can  serve  punch  there  the  night 
of  my  coming-out  party." 

Mrs.  Emery  was  at  her  heels.  Her  husband  laughed  at 
his  wife's  expression,  and  drew  her  toward  him.  "  Here, 
Mother,  stop  staring  at  Lydia  long  enough  to  welcome  me 
home,  too."  He  bent  over  her  and  rubbed  his  cheek  against 
hers.  "  Come,  tell  me  the  news.  Are  you  feeling  better?  " 
He  gave  her  a  little  playful  push  toward  the  door  of  the 
parlor.  "  Here,  let's  go  in  and  visit  for  a  while.  I'm  an 
old  fool !  I  can't  do  any  work  this  morning.  I  kept  Lydia 
from  telling  me  a  thing  all  the  way  from  New  York,  so  that 
we  could  hear  it  together." 

Lydia  protested.  "  Tell  you !  After  those  monstrous 
great  letters  I've  written !  There's  nothing  you  don't  know. 
There's  nothing  much  to  tell,  anyhow.  I've  been  museumed 
and  picture-galleried,  and  churched,  and  cultured  generally, 
till  I'm  full  —  up  to  there ! "  She  drew  her  hand  across 
her  slim  white  throat  and  added  cheerfully,  "  But  I  for- 
got the  most  of  that  the  last  three  months  in  Paris. 


26  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Nearly  every  girl  in  the  party  was  going  home  to  come  out 
in  society,  and  of  course  we  just  concentrated  on  clothes. 
You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

As  she  hesitated,  with  raised  eyebrows  of  doubt,  her 
mother,  heedless  of  what  she  was  saying,  was  suddenly 
overcome  by  her  appealing  look  and  drew  her  close  with 
a  rush  of  little  incoherent  tender  cries  choked  with  tears. 
It  was  as  though  she  were  seeing  her  for  the  first  time. 
Judge  Emery  twice  tried  to  speak  before  his  husky  voice 
was  under  control.  He  patted  his  wife  on  the  shoulder. 
"  There,  there,  Mother,"  he  said  vaguely.  To  Lydia  he 
went  on,  "  You've  been  gone  quite  a  while,  you  know, 
and  —  well,  till  you  have  a  baby-girl  of  your  own  I  guess 
you  won't  have  much  notion  of  how  we  feel." 

Lydia's  dark  eyes  filled,  responsive  to  the  emotion  about 
her.  "  I'm  just  about  distracted,"  she  cried.  "  I  love  every- 
body and  everything  so,  I  can't  stand  it!  I  want  to  kiss 
you  both  and  I  can't  make  up  my  mind  which  to  kiss 
first  —  and  it's  that  way  about  everything!  It's  all  so 
good  I  don't  know  what  to  begin  on."  She  brought  their 
faces  together  and  achieved  a  simultaneous  kiss  with  a 
shaky  laugh.  "  Now,  look  here !  If  we  stand  here  another 
minute  we'll  all  cry.  Come  and  show  me  the  house.  I 
want  to  see  every  single  thing.  All  the  old  things,  and  all 
the  new  ones  Mother's  been  writing  about."  She  seized 
their  hands  and  pulled  them  into  the  parlor.  "  I've  been 
in  this  room  already,  but  I  didn't  see  it.  I  don't  believe  I 
even  touched  the  floor  when  I  walked,  I  was  so  excited. 
Oh,  it's  lovely  —  it's  lovely !  " 

She  darted  about  the  room  like  a  humming-bird,  recog- 
nizing what  was  familiar  with  fond  little  exclamations. 
"  Oh,  that  darling  little  wicker  chair !  —  the  picture  of  the 
dog !  —  oh !  oh  1  here's  my  china  lamb !  "  and  crying  out 
in  admiration  over  new  acquisitions. 

"  Oh,  Mother,  what  a  perfectly  lovely  couch  —  sofa  — 
what  do  you  call  it?  Why,  it  is  so  beautifully  different! 
Wherever  did  you  get  that  ?  " 


Picking  Up  the  Threads  27 

Mrs.  Emery  turned  to  her  husband.  "  There,  Nathaniel, 
what  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  she  triumphed. 

"  That's  one  of  your  mother's  latest  extravagances,"  ex- 
plained Judge  Emery.  "  There's  a  crazy  fad  in  Endbury 
for  special  handmade  furniture.  Maybe  it's  all  right,  but 
I  can't  see  it's  so  much  better  than  what  you  buy  in  the 
department  stores.  Grand  Rapids  is  good  enough  for  me." 

"  He  doesn't  like  the  man  who  made  it,"  said  Mrs.  Emery 
accusingly. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  him  ?  "  asked  Lydia,  rubbing 
her  hand  luxuriously  over  the  satin-smooth,  lusterless  wood 
of  the  sofa's  high  back. 

Judge  Emery  replied,  with  his  laugh  of  easy,  indifferent 
tolerance  for  everything  outside  the  profession  of  the  law, 
"  Oh,  I  never  said  I  didn't  like  him ;  I  only  said  he  struck 
me  as  a  crack-brained,  self-willed,  conceited  — " 

Lydia  laughed.  She  thought  her  father's  dry,  ironic  turns 
very  witty. 

"  I  never  saw  anything  conceited  about  him,"  protested 
Mrs.  Emery,  admitting  the  rest  of  the  indictment. 

Judge  Emery  sat  down  on  the  sofa  in  question  and  pulled 
his  tie  into  shape.  "  Well,  folks  are  always  conceited  who 
find  the  ordinary  ways  of  doing  things  not  good  enough 
for  them.  Lydia,  what  do  you  think  of  this  tie?  Nobody 
pays  a  proper  attention  to  my  ties  but  you." 

"  I've  brought  you  some  beauties  from  London,"  said 
Lydia.  Then  reverting  with  a  momentary  curiosity  to  the 
subject  they  had  left,  "  Whatever  does  this  man  do  that's 
so  queer  ? " 

"  Oh,  he's  just  one  of  the  back-to-all-fours  faddists,"  said 
her  father. 

"  Back-to-all-fours  ?  "  Lydia  was  dim  as  to  his  meaning, 
but  willing  to  be  amused. 

"  That's  just  your  father's  way,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Emery, 
who  had  not  her  daughter's  fondness  for  the  Judge's  tricks 
of  speech. 

"  He  lives  as  no  Dago  ditch-digger  with  a  particle  of 


28  The  Squirrel-Cage 

get-up-and-get  in  him  would  be  willing  to,"  said  Judge 
Emery  finally. 

Lydia  turned  to  her  mother. 

"  Why,  it's  nothing  that  would  interest  you  in  the  least, 
dear,"  said  the  matron,  taking  in  admiringly  Lydia's  French 
dress.  "  Only  for  a  little  while  everybody  was  talking  about 
how  strangely  he  acted.  He  was  an  insurance  man,  like 
Marietta's  husband,  and  getting  on  finely,  when  all  of  a 
sudden,  for  no  reason  on  earth,  he  threw  it  all  up  and 
went  to  live  in  the  woods.  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  only 
paid  twenty  dollars  for  that  dress  ?  " 

"  In  the  woods !  "  repeated  Lydia. 

"  Yes ;  the  real  woods.  His  father  was  a  farmer,  and 
left  him  —  why  you  know,  you've  been  there  ever  so  many 
times  —  the  Black  Rock  woods,  the  picnic  woods.  He  has 
built  him  a  little  hut  there  and  makes  his  furniture  out  of 
the  trees." 

Lydia's  passing  curiosity  had  faded.  "  Not  quite  twenty, 
even  —  only  ninety-two  francs,"  she  at  last  answered  her 
mother's  question.  "  You  never  saw  anything  like  the  bar- 
gains there  in  summertime.  Well,  I  should  think  your 
carpenter  man  was  crazy."  She  glanced  down  with  satis- 
faction at  the  hang  of  her  skirt. 

"  Oh,  not  dangerous,"  her  mother  reassured  her ;  "  just 
socialistic,  I  suppose,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  Well,  who's  crazier  than  a  socialist  ?  "  cried  her  father 
genially.  He  added,  "  Where  are  you  going,  Daughter  ?  " 

Lydia  stopped  in  the  doorway,  with  a  look  of  apology 
for  her  lack  of  interest  in  their  talk.  "  I  thought  I'd  just 
slip  into  the  hall  and  see  if  there's  anything  new  there. 
There's  so  much  I  want  to  see  —  all  at  once." 

Her  fond  impatience  brought  her  parents  forward  with 
a  start  of  pleasure,  and  the  tour  of  inspection  began.  She 
led  them  from  one  room  to  another,  swooping  with  swallow- 
like  motions  upon  them  for  sudden  caresses,  dazzling  them 
with  her  changing  grace.  She  liked  it  all  —  all  —  she  told 
them,  a  thousand  times  better  than  she  remembered.  She 
liked  the  new  arrangement  of  the  butler's  pantry ;  she  loved 


Picking  Up  the  Threads  29 

the  library  for  being  all  done  over  new ;  she  adored  the  hall 
for  being  left  exactly  the  way  it  was.  The  dining-room 
was  the  best  of  all,  she  declared,  with  so  much  that  was  fa- 
miliar and  so  much  that  was  new.  "  Only  no  sideboard," 
she  commented.  "  Have  they  gone  out  of  fashion  while  I 


was  away 


Mrs.  Emery,  whose  delight  at  Lydia's  approval  had  been 
mounting  with  every  breath,  looked  vexed.  "  I  knew  you'd 
notice  that !  "  she  said.  "  We  tried  so  hard  to  get  the  new 
one  put  in  before  you  got  back,  but  Mr.  Rankin  won't 
deliver  a  thing  till  it's  just  so! " 

"  Rankin !  "  cried  Lydia,  stopping  so  short  in  one  of  her 
headlong  rushes  across  the  room  that  she  gave  the  impres- 
sion of  having  encountered  an  invisible  obstacle,  "  Who's 
that?" 

"  Oh,  that's  the  crazy  cabinet-maker  we  were  talking 
about.  The  one  who — " 

"  Why,  I've  met  a  Mr.  Rankin,"  said  Lydia,  with  more 
emphasis  than  the  statement  seemed  to  warrant. 

"  It's  a  common  enough  name,"  said  her  mother,  struck 
oddly  by  her  accent. 

"  But  here,  in  Endbury.  Only  it  can't  be  the  same  per- 
son. He  wasn't  queer;  he  was  awfully  nice.  I  met  him 
once  when  a  crowd  of  us  were  out  skating  that  last  Christ- 
mas I  was  home  from  school ;  the  time  when  you  and 
Father  were  in  Washington  and  left  me  at  Dr.  Melton's 
with  Aunt  Julia.  I  used  to  see  him  there  a  lot.  He  used 
to  talk  to  the  doctor  by  the  hour,  and  Aunt  Julia  and  I 
were  doing  that  set  of  doilies  in  Hardanger  work  and  we 
used  to  sit  and  sew  and  count  threads  and  listen." 

"  That's  the  one,"  said  her  father.  "  Melton  has  one  of 
his  flighty  notions  that  the  man  is  something  wonderful." 

"  But  he  wasn't  queer  or  anything  then ! "  protested 
Lydia.  "  He  never  talked  to  me  any,  of  course,  I  was  such 
a  kid,  but  it  was  awfully  interesting  to  hear  him  and  God- 
father go  on  about  morals,  and  the  universe,  and  the  future 
of  man,  and  such  —  I  never  heard  such  talk  before  or  after 
—  but  it  can't  be  that  one !  "  Lydia  broke  off  to  marvel 


3O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

incredulously  at  the  possibility.  "  He  •  was  —  why,  he  was 
awfully  nice ! "  she  fell  back  on  reiteration  to  help  out  hei 
affirmation. 

"  They  say  there's  queer  blood  in  the  family,  and  I  guess 
he's  got  his  share,"  Judge  Emery  summed  up  and  dismissed 
the  case  with  a  gesture  of  finality.  He  glanced  up  at  a  tall 
clock  standing  in  the  corner,  compared  its  time  with  his 
watch,  exclaimed  impatiently,  "  Slow  again !  "  and  addressed 
himself  with  a  householder's  seriousness  to  setting  it  right. 

A  new  aspect  of  the  matter  they  had  been  discussing 
struck  Lydia.  "  But  what  does  he  —  what  do  people  do 
about  him  ?  "  she  asked. 

This  misty  inquiry  was  as  intelligible  to  her  mother  as 
a  cipher  to  the  holders  of  a  key.  "  Oh,  he's  very  nice 
about  that.  He  has  dropped  out  of  society  completely  and 
keeps  out  of  everybody's  way.  Of  course  you  see  him 
when  he  comes  to  set  up  a  piece  of  his  furniture  or  to  take 
an  order,  but  that's  all.  And  he  used  to  be  so  popular ! " 
The  regret  in  the  last  clause  was  that  of  a  thrifty  person 
before  waste  of  any  kind.  "  I  understand  he  still  goes  to 
Dr.  Melton's  a  good  deal,  but  that  just  counts  him  in  as 
one  of  the  doctor's  collection  of  freaks;  it  doesn't  mean 
anything.  You  know  how  your  godfather  goes  on  about  — " 
She  broke  off  to  look  out  the  window.  "  Oh,  Lydia !  your 
trunks  are  here.  Quick!  where  are  your  keys?  It  seems 
as  though  I  couldn't  wait  to  see  your  dresses !  "  She  hur- 
ried to  the  door  and  vanished. 

Lydia  did  not  stir  for  a  moment.  She  was  looking  down 
at  the  table,  absorbed  in  watching  the  dim  reflections  of  her 
Ipink  finger-tips  as  she  pressed  them  one  after  another  upon 
the  dark  polished  wood.  Her  father  opened  the  door  o-f 
the  clock  with  a  little  click,  but  she  did  not  heed  it.  She 
drew  her  hand  away  from  the  table  and  inspected  her 
finger-tips  intently,  as  though  to  detect  some  change  in  them. 
When  her  father  closed  the  clock-door  and  turned  away 
she  started,  as  though  she  had  forgotten  his  presence.  Her 
gaze  upon  him  gave  him  an  odd  feeling  of  wonder,  which 
he  took  to  be  apologetic  realization  that  he  had  spent  a 


Picking  Up  the  Threads  31 

longer  time  oblivious  of  her  than  he  had  meant.  His  ex- 
planation had  a  little  compunction  in  it.  "  I  have  a  time 
with  that  pendulum  always,  I  can't  seem  to  get  it  the 
right  length!" 

Lydia  continued  to  look  at  him  blankly  for  a  moment. 
Then  she  drew  a  long  breath  and  took  an  aimless  step  away 
from  the  table.  "  Well,  if  that  isn't  too  queer  for  any- 
thing ! "  she  exclaimed. 

Judge  Emery  stared.  "  Why,  no ;  it's  quite  common  in 
pendulum  clocks,"  he  told  her. 

f 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  DAWN 

THE  morning  after  her  return  from  Europe,  Lydia  awoke 
with  a  start,  as  though  in  answer  to  a  call.  The  confusion 
of  the  last  days  had  been  such  that  she  had  for  a  moment 
the  not  uncommon  experience  of  an  entire  blankness  as 
to  her  whereabouts  and  identity.  Realization  of  where 
and  who  she  was  came  back  to  her  with  much  more  than 
the  usual  neutral  relief  at  slipping  into  one's  own  person- 
ality as  into  the  first  protection  available  against  the  vague 
horror  of  nihility.  After  an  instant's  uncomfortable  wan- 
dering in  chaos,  Lydia  found  herself  with  a  thrill  of  exul- 
tation. She  was  not  negatively  relieved  that  she  was  some- 
body; she  rejoiced  to  find  herself  Lydia  Emery.  She 
pounced  on  her  own  personality  with  a  positive  joy  which 
for  a  moment  moved  her  to  a  devout  thanksgiving. 

It  all  seemed,  as  she  said  to  herself,  too  good  to  be 
true  —  certainly  more  than  she  deserved.  Among  her 
unmerited  blessings  she  quaintly  placed  being  herself 
but  this  was  the  less  naive  in  that  she  placed  among  her 
blessings  nearly  everything  of  which  she  was  conscious  in 
her  world.  Her  world  at  this  time  was  not  a  large  one, 
and  every  element  in  it  seemed  to  her  ideal.  Her  loving, 
indulgent  father,  who  always  had  a  smile  for  her  as  he 
looked  up  over  his  newspaper  at  the  table,  and  who,  though 
she  knew  he  was  too  good  to  be  wealthy,  always  managed 
somehow  to  pay  for  dresses  just  a  little  prettier  than  other 
girls'  clothes;  her  devoted,  idolizing  mother,  whose  one 
thought  was  for  her  daughter's  pleasure;  her  rich  big 
Brother  George  in  Cleveland,  whom  she  saw  so  seldom,  but 
whose  handsome  presents  testified  to  an  affection  that  was 

3* 


The  Dawn  33 

to  be  numbered  among  the  objects  of  her  gratitude;  good, 
sharp-tongued  Sister  Etta,  who  said  such  quick,  bright 
things  and  ran  her  house  so  wonderfully ;  Aunt  Julia,  dear, 
dear  Aunt  Julia,  whose  warm  heart  was  one  of  Lydia's 
happiest  homes,  and  Aunt  Julia's  brother,  Dr.  Melton  — 
ah,  how  could  anyone  be  grateful  enough  for  such  an  all- 
comprehending,  quick-helping,  ever-ready  ally,  teacher, 
mentor,  playmate,  friend  and  comrade  as  her  godfather! 

As  she  lay  in  her  soft  white  bed  and  looked  about  her 
pretty  room  with  an  ineffable  sense  of  well-being,  it  seemed 
to  her  that  everything  that  had  happened  to  her  was  lovely 
and  that  the  prospect  of  her  future  could  contain  only  a 
crescendo  of  good-fortune.  It  was  not  that  she  imagined 
for  herself  a  future  remarkably  different  in  detail  from 
what  was  the  past  of  the  people  about  her.  Even  now  at 
what  she  felt  was  the  beginning  of  the  first  chapter,  she 
knew  the  general  events  of  the  story  before  her;  but  this 
morning  she  was  penetrated  with  the  keenest  sense  of  the 
unfathomable  difference  it  made  in  those  events  in  that 
they  were  about  to  happen  to  her.  She  had  been  passively 
watching  the  excited  faces  of  people  hurling  themselves 
down-hill  on  toboggans,  but  now  she  was  herself  poised  on 
the  crest  of  the  slope,  tense  with  an  excitement  not  only 
more  real,  but  somehow  more  vital  to  the  scheme  of  things, 
than  that  felt  by  other  people  who  had  made  the  thrilling 
trip  before  her. 

She  lay  still  for  a  few  moments,  luxuriating  in  the  inno- 
cent egotism  of  this  view  of  her  future,  which  was  none 
the  less  absorbing  for  being  so  entirely  unterrifying,  and 
then  sprang  up,  impatient  to  begin  it.  No  one  else  in  the 
house  was  awake.  She  saw  with  surprise  that  it  was  barely 
five  o'clock.  She  wondered  that  she  felt  so  little  sleepy, 
since  she  had  been  up  late  the  night  before.  All  the  family 
and  connections  had  gathered,  and  she  had  talked  with  an 
eager  breathlessness  and  had  listened  as  eagerly  to  pick  up 
all  those  details  of  home  news  which  do  not  go  *nto  letters ; 
those  insignificant  changes  and  events  that  make  up  the 
physiognomy  of  an  existence,  without  which  one  cannot 


34  The  Squirrel-Cage 

again  become  an  integral  part  of  a  life  once  familiar.  It 
had  been  a  fatiguing,  illuminating  evening. 

A  change  of  mood  had  come  in  the  night.  As  she  dressed 
she  felt  that,  in  some  way,  neither  the  fatigue  nor  the 
illumination  had  lasted  on  through  the  blankness  of  her 
sound  young  sleep.  She  felt  restlessly  fresh  and  vigorous, 
like  a  creature  born  anew  with  the  morning  light,  and  she 
did  not  feel  herself  as  yet  an  integral  part  of  the  busy, 
absorbing  life  to  which  she  had  returned.  The  countless 
tendrils  of  Endbury  feelings,  standards,  activities,  brushed 
against  her,  but  had  not  as  yet  laid  hold  on  her.  Europe 
had  never  been  more  real  to  her  young-lady  eyes  than  an 
immense  World's  Exposition,  rather  overwhelmingly  full 
of  objects  to  be  inspected,  and  now,  here  in  Ohio,  even  that 
impression  was  dim  and  remote.  But  so,  also,  was  End- 
bury;  she  had  left  the  one,  she  had  not  yet  arrived  at  the 
other.  She  felt  herself  for  the  moment  in  a  neutral  terri- 
tory that  was  scarcely  terrestrial. 

The  silent  house  was  a  kingdom  of  delight  to  be  redis- 
covered. She  wandered  about  it,  enchanted  with  the  im- 
pressions which  her  solitude  gave  her  leisure  to  savor  and 
digest.  She  threw  open  a  window,  and  was  struck  with 
the  sweet  freshness  of  the  morning  air,  as  though  it  were 
a  joy  new  in  the  history  of  the  world.  She  looked  out  on 
the  lawn,  with  its  dew-studded  cobwebs,  and  felt  her  heart 
contract  with  pleasure.  When  she  stepped  out  on  the 
veranda,  the  look  of  the  trees,  the  breath  of  the  light  wind 
across  her  cheek,  the  odor  of  dawn,  all  the  indefinable  per- 
sonality of  that  early  hour  was  like  an  enchantment  about 
her. 

She  ran  out  to  her  favorite  arbor  and  plucked  one  of  the 
heavy  clusters  of  purple  grapes,  finding  their  cool  acidity 
an  exquisite  surprise.  She  raised  her  face  to  the  sky  with 
wonder.  She  had  never,  it  seemed  to  her,  seen  so  pure 
yet  colorful  a  sky.  The  horizon  was  still  faintly  flushed 
with  the  promise  of  a  dawn  already  fulfilled  in  the  fresh 
splendor  of  the  sunbeams  slanting  across  the  fresh  splendor 
of  her  own  youth. 


The  Dawn  35 

Never  again  did  Lydia  see  the  things  she  saw  that  morn- 
ing. Never  again  did  she  have  so  unquestioningly  the 
happy  child's  conception  of  the  whole  world  as  magically 
centered  in  indulgent  kindness  about  herself.  As  she  looked 
up  the  clean,  empty  street  stretching  away  under  the  shade 
of  its  thrifty  young  trees,  it  seemed  made  only  to  lead  her 
forward  into  the  life  for  which  she  had  been  so  long  pre- 
paring herself.  Endbury,  with  its  shops,  its  bustle  of  fac- 
tories so  unmeaning  to  her,  the  great  bulk  of  its  inexplicable 
"  business,"  existed  only  as  the  theater  upon  the  stage  of 
which  she  was  to  play  the  leading  role  in  the  drama  of 
life  —  she  almost  consciously  thought  of  it  in  those  terms 
—  which,  after  some  exciting  and  pleasurable  incidents  and 
a  few  thrilling  situations,  was  to  have  a  happy  ending,  none 
the  less  actual  to  her  mind  because  lost  in  so  vague  a  golden 
shimmer.  Her  father's  house,  as  familiar  to  her  as  her 
hand,  took  on  a  new  and  rich  dignity  as  the  background  for 
the  unfolding  of  that  wonderful  creature,  herself ;  that  un- 
known, future,  grown-up  self,  which  was  to  be  all  that 
everyone  who  loved  her  expected,  and  more  than  she  in  her 
inexperience  knew  how  to  expect. 

She  was  in  a  little  heaven,  made  up  of  tfie  most  ingenuous 
aspirations,  the  innocence  of  which  seemed  to  her  a  guar- 
antee of  their  certain  fulfillment.  Her  fervent  desire  to 
be  good  was  equal  to  and  of  the  same  quality  as  her  desire 
to  be  a  successful  debutante.  It  would  make  her  family  so 
happy  to  have  her  both.  These  somewhat  widely  diverging 
aims  were  all  a  part  of  the  current  of  her  life,  the  impulse 
to  be  what  those  she  loved  would  like  to  have  her.  It  was 
not  that  she  was  willing  to  give  up  her  own  individuality 
to  gratify  the  impulse,  but  rather  that  she  did  not  for  an 
instant  conceive  of  the  necessity  for  such  a  sacrifice.  It 
was  part  of  her  immense  happiness  that  she  had  always 
loved  to  be  what  it  pleased  everyone  to  have  her,  and  that, 
apparently,  people  wished  to  have  her  only  what  she  wished 
to  be.  She  was  like  a  child  guarded  by  her  elders  from 
any  knowledge  of  forbidden  food.  All  the  goodies  of  which 
she  had  ever  heard  were  hers  for  the  asking.  In  such  a 


36  The  Squirrel-Cage 

carefully  arranged  nursery  it  would  be  pervetsity  to  doubt 
the  everlasting  quality  of  the  coincidence  between  one's 
desires  and  one's  obedience.  It  was  no  more  remarkable 
a  coincidence  than  that  both  dew  and  sunshine  were  good 
for  the  grass  over  which  she  now  ran  lightly  to  another 
corner  of  the  grounds  about  her  parents'  house.  Here,  just 
outside  the  circle  of  deep  shade  cast  by  an  exuberantly 
leaved  maple,  she  stood  for  a  moment,  her  hands  full  of 
grapes,  her  eyes  wandering  about  the  green,  well-kept  double 
acres  called  diversely  in  the  family  "the  grounds"  (Mrs. 
Emery's  name)  and  "  the  yard."  Lydia  always  clung  to 
her  father's  name;  she  had  very  little  inborn  feeling  for 
the  finer  shades  of  her  mother's  vocabulary.  Mrs.  Emery 
rejoiced  in  the  careless  unconsciousness  of  the  importance 
of  such  details,  but  she  felt  that  Lydia  should  be  cautioned 
against  going  too  far.  It  was  one  of  the  girl's  odd  ways 
to  be  fond  of  the  few  phrases  left  over  in  the  Emery  dic- 
tionary from  their  simpler  earlier  days.  She  always  called 
the  two  servants  "  the  girls  "  or  "  the  help  "  instead  of  "  the 
maids,"  spoke  of  the  "  washwoman  "  instead  of  the  "  laun- 
dress," and,  as  did  her  father,  called  the  man  who  took 
care  of  the  grounds,  ran  the  furnace,  and  drove  the  Emery's 
comfortable  surrey,  the  "  hired  man  "  instead  of  the  "  gar- 
dener "  or  the  "  coachman,"  or,  in  Mrs.  Emery's  elegantly 
indefinite  phrase,  "  our  man." 

Lydia  explained  this  whimsical  reaction  rather  incoher- 
ently by  saying  that  those  nice  old  words  were  so  much 
more  fun  than  the  others,  and  in  spite  of  remonstrance  she 
clung  to  her  fancy  with  so  lightly  laughing  an  obstinacy 
that  neither  she  nor  anyone  suspected  it  of  being  a  surface 
indication  of  a  significant  tendency. 

She  had  occasionally  other  droll  little  ways  of  differing 
from  the  family,  which  were  called  indulgently  "  Lydia's 
notions."  Her  mother  would  certainly  have  thus  named 
this  flight  out  into  the  early  morning.  She  would  have 
found  extravagant,  and  a  little  disconcerting,  the  complete- 
ness of  Lydia's  content  in  so  simple  a  thing  as  standing  in 
the  first  sunshine  of  an  early  morning  in  September,  and 


The  Dawn  37 

she  would  have  been  unquestionably  disturbed,  perhaps 
even  a  little  alarmed,  by  the  beatific  expression  of  Lydia's 
face  as  she  gazed  fixedly  up  into  the  sky,  the  tempered 
radiance  of  which  was  as  yet  not  too  bright  for  her  clear 
gaze. 

All  the  restless  joy  of  a  few  minutes  before,  which  had 
driven  her  about  from  one  delight  to  another,  fused  under 
the  sun's  first  warmth  into  a  trance-like  quiet.  She  stood 
still  in  the  sunshine,  a  slow  flush,  like  a  reflection  of  dawn, 
rising  to  her  cheeks,  her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  bright  and 
vacant.  An  old  person  coming  upon  her  at  this  moment 
would  have  been  painfully  moved  by  that  tragic  pity  which 
age  feels  for  the  unreasoning  joy  of  youth.  She  looked  a 
child,  open-eyed  and  breathless  before  the  fleeting  beauties 
of  a  bubble,  most  iridescent  when  about  to  disappear. 

It  was  a  man  by  no  means  old  who  swung  suddenly  into 
sight  around  the  corner,  walking  swiftly  and  noiselessly 
upon  the  close-cut  grass,  and  the  startled  expression  with 
which  he  found  himself  close  to  Lydia  was  by  no  means 
one  of  pity.  He  fell  back  a  step,  and  in  the  instant  before 
the  girl  was  aware  of  his  presence  his  gaze  upon  her  was 
that  of  a  man  dazzled  by  an  incredible  vision. 

She  brought  her  eyes  down  to  him,  and  for  the  space  of 
a  breath  the  expression  was  hers  as  well.  The  sunlight 
glowing  about  them  seemed  the  reflection  of  their  faces. 
Then,  for  a  moment  longer,  though  mutual  recognition 
flashed  into  their  eyes,  they  did  not  speak,  looking  at  each 
other  long  and  seriously. 

Finally,  with  a  nymph-like  stir  of  all  her  slender  body, 
Lydia  roused  herself.  "Well,  I  can  speak  —  can  you?" 
she  asked  whimsically.  "  Don't  you  remember  me  ?  " 

The  man  drew  a  long  breath  and  took  off  his  cap, 
showing  close-cropped  auburn  hair  gleaming,  like  his  beard, 
red  in  the  sun.  "  You  took  my  breath  away ! "  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"  What  was  the  matter  with  me  ?  "  asked  Lydia,  prettily 
confident  of  a  compliment  to  follow. 

It  came  in  so  much  less  direct  a  form  than  she  had  ex- 


38  The  Squirrel-Cage 

pected  that  before  she  recognized  it  she  had  returned  it 
with  naive  impulsiveness. 

"  I  didn't  think  you  could  be  real,"  said  the  man,  "  you 
looked  so  exactly  the  way  this  glorious  morning  made  me 
feel." 

"  Why,  that's  just  how  you  looked  to  me ! "  she  cried, 
and  flushed  at  the  significance  of  her  words. 

Before  her  confusion  the  other  turned  away  his  quiet 
gray  eyes,  and  said  lightly,  "  Well,  that's  because  we  are 
the  only  people  in  all  the  world  with  sense  enough  to  get 
up  so  early  on  a  morning  like  this.  I've  been  out  tramping 
since  dawn." 

Lydia  explained  herself  also.  "  I  just  couldn't  sleep,  it 
seemed  so  lovely.  It's  my  first  morning  home,  you  know." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  responded  the  man,  with  a  vagueness  he  made 
no  effort  to  conceal. 

It  came  over  Lydia  with  a  shock  that  he  did  not  know 
she  had  been  away.  She  felt  hurt.  It  seemed  ungracious 
for  anyone  in  Endbury  not  to  have  missed  her,  not  to  share 
in  the  joyful  excitement  of  her  final  return.  "  I've  been 
in  Europe  for  a  year,"  she  told  him,,  with  a  dignity  that 
was  a  reproach. 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes ;  I  remember  now  hearing  Dr.  Melton  speak 
of  it,"  he  answered,  with  no  shade  of  apology  for  his  for- 
getfulness.  He  looked  at  her  speculatively,  as  if  wonder- 
ing what  note  to  strike  for  the  continuation  of  their  talk. 
Apparently  he  decided  on  the  note  of  lightness.  "  Well, 
you're  the  most  important  person  there  is  for  me  to-day," 
he  told  her  unexpectedly. 

Lydia  arched  her  dark  eyebrows  inquiringly.  She  was 
always  sensitively  rerponsive,  and  now  had  forgotten,  like 
a  sweet-tempered  child,  her  momentary  pique. 

He  smiled  suddenly,  moved,  as  people  often  were,  to  an 
apparently  irrelevant  tenderness  for  her.  His  voice  sof- 
tened into  a  playfulness  like  that  of  a  person  speaking  to 
an  imaginative  little  girl.  "  Why,  didn't  you  learn  in  school 
that  all  wise  old  nations  have  the  belief  that  the  first  per- 
son you  meet  after  you  go  out  in  the  morning  decides 


The  Dawn  39 

the  fortune  of  the  day  for  you?  Now,  what  kind  of  a  day 
are  you  going  to  give  me  ?  " 

Lydia  laughed.  "  Oh,  you  must  tell  first !  You  forget 
you're  the  first  person  I've  seen  this  morning.  I'll  see  what 
I  can  do  for  you  after  I've  seen  what  you  are  going  to  do 
for  me."  She  added,  with  a  solemnity  only  half  jocular, 
"  But  it's  ever  so  much  more  important  in  my  case,  for 
you're  the  first  person  I  meet  as  I  begin  my  life  in  Endbury. 
Think  what  a  responsibility  for  you!  You  ought  to  give 
me  something  extra  nice  beside,  for  not  remembering  me 
any  better  and  never  noticing  that  I  had  been  away." 
She  broke  into  a  sunny  mitigation  of  her  own  severity, 
"  But  you  can  have  some  grapes,  even  if  you  are  not  very 
flattering." 

The  man  took  the  cluster  she  held  out  to  him,  but  only 
eyed  them  as  he  answered,  "  Oh,  I  remember  you  very  well. 
You're  a  niece  of  Mrs.  Sandworth's,  or  of  her  husband's, 
and  Mrs.  Sandworth  is  Dr.  Melton's  sister.  You're  the 
big-eyed  little  girl  who  used  to  sit  in  a  corner  and  sew 
while  the  doctor  and  I  talked,  and  now,"  he  brought  it  out 
rotundly,  "you've  been  to  Europe  for  a  year,  and  you're 
grown-up." 

Lydia  hung  her  head  laughingly  at  his  good-natured  cari- 
cature. "  Well,  but  I  have,  really  and  truly,"  she  protested, 
"  all  of  that.  And  I  just  guess  you  haven't  had  two  such 
interesting  things  happen  to  you  in  such  a  short  time 
as — "  She  stopped  short,  struck  dumb  by  a  sudden  recol- 
lection. "  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  murmured ;  "  I  for- 
got about  what  they  said  you  had  — " 

Her  expression  was  so  altered,  she  looked  at  him  with 
so  curious  a  change  from  familiarity  to  strangeness,  that 
his  steady  eyes  wavered  a  moment  in  startled  surprise. 
"What's  that?"  he  asked  sharply;  "I  didn't  catch  what 
you  said." 

"  Why,  nothing  —  nothing  —  only  they  were  telling  me 
yesterday  about  how  you  —  why,  it  just  came  over  me  that 
you  had  had  a  great  deal  happen  to  you  this  last  year,  as 
well  as  I." 


4O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

He  looked  a  relieved  and  slightly  annoyed  comprehension 
of  the  case.  "  Oh,  that !  "  he  summed  it  up  for  her  with 
a  grave  brevity.  "  I  have  lost  my  father,  and  I  have  started 
life  on  a  new  footing  during  the  past  year." 

Lydia  fumbled  for  words  that  would  be  applicable  and 
not  wounding.  "  I  was  so  sorry  to  hear  that  —  about  your 
father,  I  mean.  And  about  the  other  —  it  must  be  very 

—  interesting,  I'm  sure." 

His  silence  and  enigmatic  gaze  upon  her  moved  her  to 
a  fluttered  fear  lest  she  seem  ungracious.  She  added,  with 
a  droll  little  air  of  letting  him  see  that  she  was  not  of  the 
enemy,  "  I  do  hope  some  day  you'll  tell  me  all  about  it ; 
it  sounds  so  romantic." 

The  young  man  gave  an  inarticulate  sound,  and  stroked 
his.  ruddy  beard  to  conceal  a  smile.  "  It's  not,"  he  said 
briefly.  He  put  his  cap  back  on  his  head  and  looked  down 
the  street  as  though  his  thoughts  were  already  away. 

His  lack  of  responsiveness  came,  Lydia  thought,  from 
her  having  wounded  his  feelings.  "  Oh,  I'm  sure  you  must 
have  some  good  reason  for  doing  such  a  queer  thing,"  she 
said  hurriedly.  Then,  appalled  by  the  words  on  which  the 
haste  of  her  good  intentions  had  carried  her,  "  Oh,  I  mean 
that  it's  very  brave,  heroic,  of  you  to  have  the  courage 

—  perhaps  something  very  sad  happened  to  you,  and  to  for- 
get it  you  — " 

The  other  broke  into  the  laugh  he  had  been  trying  to 
suppress.  His  gray  eyes  lighted  up  brilliantly  with  his 
mirth.  "  You're  very  kind,"  he  said,  "  you're  very  kind, 
but  rather  imaginative.  It  doesn't  take  any  courage ;  quite 
the  reverse.  And  it's  not  a  picturesque  way  of  doing  a 
retreat  from  active  life.  I  hope  and  pray  that  it's  to  be 
a  way  of  getting  into  it." 

The  girl's  face  of  bewilderment  at  his  tone  moved  him 
to  add,  a  ripple  of  amusement  still  in  his  voice,  "  Ah,  don't 
try  to  make  me  out.  I  don't  belong  in  your  world,  you 
know ;  I'm  real." 

Lydia  continued  to  look  at  him  blankly.  The  obscurity 
of  his  remarks  was  in  no  way  lessened  by  this  last  addition, 


The  Dawn  41 

but  he  vouchsafed  no  further  explanation.  "  You've  given 
me  my  breakfast,"  he  said,  holding  up  the  grapes ;  "  I  mustn't 
keep  you  any  longer  from  yours." 

He  waited  for  a  moment  for  Lydia  to  respond  to  this 
speech,  struck  by  a  sudden  realization  that  it  might  sound 
like  an  unceremonious  hint  to  her  to  retire,  rather  than 
the  dismissal  of  himself  he  intended.  When  she  made  no 
answer,  he  turned  away  with  a  somewhat  awkward  gesture 
of  leave-taking.  Lydia  looked  after  him  in  silence. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  DAY  BEGINS 

SHE  watched  him  until  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  although 
the  vigorous,  rhythmic  swing  of  his  broad  shoulders  was 
like  another  manifestation  of  the  morning's  joyous,  buoyant 
spirit,  it  did  not  move  her  to  a  responsive  alertness.  After 
he  had  turned  a  corner,  she  lowered  her  eyes  to  the  cluster 
of  grapes  she  still  held ;  a  moment  after,  without  any  change 
in  expression,  she  relaxed  her  grasp  on  them  and  let  them 
fall,  turning  away  and  walking  soberly  back  to  the  house. 
The  dew  had  already  disappeared  from  the  grass.  There 
was  now  no  hint  of  the  dawn's  coolness ;  the  day  had  begun. 

Her  father  met  her  at  the  door  with  an  exclamation  about 
her  early  hours.  He  would  really  see  something  of  her, 
he  said,  if  she  kept  up  this  sort  of  thing.  It  would  be  too 
good  to  be  true  if  he  could  breakfast  with  her  every  morn- 
ing. Whereupon  he  rang  for  the  coffee  and  unfolded  his 
newspaper.  Lydia  did  not  notice  his  absorption  in  the 
news  of  the  day,  partly  because  she  was  trained  from  child- 
hood up  to  consider  reading  the  newspaper  as  the  main 
occupation  of  a  man  at  home,  but  more  because  on  this 
occasion  she  was  herself  preoccupied.  When  Mrs.  Mor- 
timer came  in  on  an  errand  and  was  prevailed  upon  to 
sit  down  for  some  breakfast  with  her  father  and  sister, 
there  was  a  little  more  conversation. 

Mrs.  Emery  had  not  come  down  stairs.  A  slight  indis- 
position which  she  had  felt  for  several  days  seemed  to 
have  been  augmented  by  the  excitement  of  Lydia's  return. 
She  had  slept  badly,  and  was  quite  uncomfortable,  she  told 
her  husband,  and  thought  she  would  stay  in  bed  and  send 
for  jDr.  Melton.  It  seemed  foolish,  she  apologized,  but 

42 


The  Day  Begins  43 

now  that  Lydia  was  back,  she  wanted  to  be  on  the  safe 
side  and  lose  no  time.  After  these  facts  had  been  com- 
municated to  her  older  daughter,  Mrs.  Mortimer  asked, 
"  How  in  the  world  does  it  happen  that  you're  up  at  this 
hour?" 

Lydia  answered  that  she  had  been  inspecting  the  yard, 
which  she  had  not  seen  the  day  before.  She  described  quite 
elaborately  her  tour  of  investigation,  without  any  mention 
of  her  encounter  with  her  early  caller,  and  only  after  a 
pause  added  carelessly,  "  Who  do  you  suppose  came  along 
but  that  Mr.  Rankin  you  were  all  talking  about  yester- 
day?" 

Judge  Emery  laid  down  his  paper.  "  What  under  the 
sun  was  he  prowling  about  for  at  that  hour  ?  " 

"  He  wasn't  prowling,"  said  Lydia.  "  He  was  fairly  tear- 
ing along  past  the  house  so  fast  that  he  'most  ran  over  me 
before  I  saw  him.  I'd  forgotten  he  is  so  handsome." 

"  Handsome ! "  Mrs.  Mortimer  cried  out  at  the  idea. 
"With  that  beard!" 

"  I  like  beards,  sometimes,"  said  Lydia. 

"  It  makes  a  man  look  like  a  barbarian.  I'd  as  soon  wear 
a  nose-ring  as  have  Ralph  wear  a  beard." 

'*  Why,  everybody  who  is  anybody  in  Europe  wears  a 
beard,  or  a  mustache,  anyhow,"  opposed  Lydia.  "  I  got 
to  liking  to  see  them." 

"  Oh,  of  course  if  they  do  it  in  Europe,  we  provincial 
stay-at-homes  haven't  a  word  to  say."  Mrs.  Mortimer  had 
invented  a  peculiar  tone  which  she  reserved  for  speeches 
like  this,  the  neutrality  of  which  gave  a  sharper  edge  to 
the  words. 

"Now,  Marietta,  that's  mean!"  Lydia  defended  herself 
very  energetically ;  "  you  know  I  didn't  say  it  for  that." 
There  was  a  moment's  pause,  of  which  Marietta  did  not 
avail  herself  for  a  retraction,  and  then  Lydia  went  on  pen- 
sively, "  Well,  he  may  be  handsome  or  not,  but  he's  cer- 
tainly not  very  polite." 

"He  didn't  say  anything  to  you,  did  he?"  asked  her 


44  The  Squirrel-Cage 

father  in  surprise,  laying  down  the  paper  he  had  raised 
again  during  the  passage  between  the  sisters. 

Lydia  hastily  proffered  an  explanation.  "  He  couldn't 
help  speaking;  he  almost  ran  into  me,  you  know.  I  was 
standing  under  the  maple  tree  in  the  corner  as  he  came 
around  from  Garfield  Avenue.  He  just  took  off  his  cap  and 
said  good  morning,  and  what  a  fine  day  it  was,  and  a  few 
words  like  that." 

"  I  don't  see  anything  so  impolite  in  that.  Perhaps  he 
wasn't  European  in  his  manners,"  suggested  Mrs.  Mortimer 
dryly.  She  had  evidently  arisen  in  the  grasp  of  a  mood, 
not  uncommon  with  her,  when  an  apparently  causeless  irrita- 
bility drove  her  to  say  things  for  which  she  afterward 
suffered  an  honest  but  fruitless  remorse.  Dr.  Melton  had 
recently  evolved  for  this  characteristic  of  hers  one  of  the 
explanations  which  the  Emerys  found  so  enigmatic.  "  Mari- 
etta," he  said  critically,  "  is  in  a  perpetual  state  of  nervous 
irritation  from  eye-strain.  She  has  naturally  excellent  and 
normal  eyesight,  but  she  has  always  been  trained  to  wear 
other  people's  spectacles.  It  puts  her  out  of  focus  all  the 
time,  and  that  makes  her  snappy." 

She  had  answered  explicitly  to  this  vague  diagnosis, 
"  Nonsense !  The  thing  that  makes  me  snappy  is  the  lack 
of  an  oriental  rug  in  our  parlor." 

"  You're  looking  at  that  through  Mrs.  Gilbert's  magnify- 
ing glasses,"  suggested  the  doctor. 

"  I'm  not  looking  at  it  at  all,  and  that's  the  trouble," 
Marietta  had  assured  him. 

"  Absence  makes  the  heart  — "  the  doctor  had  the  last 
word. 

Lydia  tried  this  morning  at  breakfast  to  obtain  the  same 
advantage  over  her  sister.  She  flushed  with  a  mixture  of 
emotions  and  tried  in  a  resentful  silence  to  think  of  some 
definable  cause  for  her  accusation  against  Rankin's  man- 
ners. Finally,  "  Well,  I  gave  him  a  bunch  of  grapes,  and 
he  never  so  much  as  said  thank  you.  He  just  took  them 
and  marched  off." 


The  Day  Begins  45 

"  Perhaps  he  doesn't  like  grapes,"  suggested  Mrs.  Mor- 
timer, grim  to  the  last. 

After  breakfast,  when  Mrs.  Mortimer  and  her  father 
disappeared,  Lydia  found  herself  with  a  long  morning  be- 
fore her.  The  doctor  telephoned  that  he  could  not  come 
before  noon.  Judge  Emery,  after  his  proprietary  good-by 
kiss,  advised  her  to  be  quiet  and  rest.  She  looked  a  little 
pale,  he  thought,  and  he  was  afraid  that,  after  her  cool 
ocean  voyage,  she  would  find  the  heat  of  an  Ohio  Sep- 
tember rather  trying.  Indeed,  as  Lydia  idled  for  a  moment 
over  the  dismantled  breakfast  table  she  was  by  no  means 
moved  to  activity.  Dark  shades  were  everywhere  drawn 
down  and  the  house  was  like  a  dimly-lighted  cave,  but 
through  this  attempt  at  protection  the  sun  was  making 
itself  felt  in  a  slowly  rising,  breathless,  moist  heat. 

Lydia  climbed  the  stairs  to  her  mother's  room.  She  was 
looking  forward  to  a  long  visit,  but  finding  the  invalid  asleep 
she  turned  away  from  the  door  rather  blankly.  She  was 
as  yet  too  much  a  stranger  in  her  own  home  to  have  at 
hand  the  universal  trivial  half-dozen  unfinished  tasks  that 
save  idle  women  from  the  perils  of  uninterrupted  thought. 
The  ribbons  were  all  run  in  her  pretty  underwear ;  she  owed 
no  notes  to  anyone,  because  she  had  been  at  home  too  short 
a  time  to  have  received  any  letters  ;  her  hair  had  been  washed 
the  last  day  on  the  steamer,  and  her  new  dresses  needed 
no  mending.  Her  trunks  had  been  unpacked  the  day  before 
by  her  mother's  competent  hands,  which  had  also  arranged 
every  detail  of  her  tasteful  room  until  to  touch  it  would 
disturb  the  effect. 

Lydia  began  to  experience  that  uneasy,  unsettling  discom- 
fort that  comes  to  modern  people  in  ordinary  modern  life 
if  some  unusual  circumstance  throws  them  temporarily  on 
their  own  resources.  She  lingered  aimlessly  for  some  time 
at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and  then,  leaning  heavily  against 
the  rail,  began  to  descend  slowly,  one  step  at  a  time,  to 
prolong  the  transit.  Where  the  stairs  turned  she  noticed 
a  stain  on  the  crisp  sleeve  of  her  white  dress.  It  came, 


46  The  Squirrel-Cage 

evidently,  from  one  of  the  grapes  she  had  eaten  that  morn- 
ing under  the  maple  tree.  A  current  of  cool  air  blew  past 
her.  It  was  the  first  relief  from  the  stagnation  of  the 
sultry  day  and,  sitting  down  on  the  landing,  she  lost  herself 
in  prolonged  meditation. 

In  the  obscurity  of  the  darkened  hall  she  was  scarcely 
visible  save  as  a  spot  of  light  showing  dimly  through  the 
balustrade,  and  she  sat  so  still  that  the  maid,  stepping  about 
below,  did  not  see  her.  On  her  part,  Lydia  noticed  but 
absently  this  slight  stir  of  domestic  activity,  nor,  after  a 
time,  louder  but  muffled  noises  from  the  dining-room.  Even 
when  the  door  to  the  dining-room  opened  and  quick,  light 
steps  came  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  she  did  not  heed  them. 
A  confused,  hushed  sound  of  someone  busy  about  various 
small  operations  did  not  rouse  her,  and  it  was  not  until 
the  fall  of  a  large  object,  clattering  noisily  on  the  floor, 
that  she  became  conscious  that  someone  beside  the  maid  was 
in  the  hall.  She  leaned  forward,  and  saw  that  the  object 
which  had  fallen  was  the  newel-post  of  the  stairs.  It  had 
evidently  been  detached  from  its  fastenings  by  the  workman 
who,  with  his  back  to  her,  now  knelt  over  a  toolbox,  fum- 
bling among  the  tools  with  resultant  little  metallic  clicks. 

Lydia  ran  down  the  stairs,  finger  on  lip.  "  Hush !  Don't 
make  any  more  noise  than  you  can  help.  Mother's  still 
asleep."  At  his  gaze  of  stupefaction  she  broke  into  her 
charming  light  laugh,  "  Why,  I  always  seem  to  strike  you 
speechless.  What's  the  matter  with  me  now  ?  " 

The  other  emerged  from  his  surprise  with  a  ready,  smil- 
ing acceptance  of  her  tone,  "  I  was  wondering  if  I  oughtn't 
to  apologize  to  you  —  if  I  should  ever  see  you  again  —  for 
being  so  curt  this  morning.  And  then  you  spring  up  out  of 
the  ground  before  me.  Well,  so  I  will  apologize.  I  do. 
I'm  very  sorry." 

They  adopted,  as  in  the  first  part  of  their  earlier  talk,  the 
half-humorous  familiarity  of  people  surprised  in  an  uncon- 
ventional situation,  but,  in  spite  of  this,  the  young  man's 
apology  was  not  without  the  accent  of  serious  sincerity. 

Lydia  responded  heartily  in  kind.     "  Oh,  it  was  I  who 


The  Day  Begins  47 

was  horrid.  And  —  wasn't  it  funny  —  I  was  just  thinking 
—  wondering  if  I  should  ever  have  a  chance  to  try  to  make 
you  see  that  I  didn't  mean  to  be  so  —  "  she  hesitated,  and 
fell  back  on  iteration  again  —  "  so  horrid." 

The  fashionable  Endbury  boarding-school  had  not  pro- 
vided its  graduate  with  any  embarrassment  of  riches  in  the 
way  of  expression  for  various  shades  of  meaning.  He 
answered,  lowering  his  voice  as  she  did,  "  Oh,  you  were 
all  right,  but  I  was  most  objectionable  with  my  impertinent 
laugh.  I'm  sorry." 

She  challenged  his  sincerity,  "  Are  you  really,  really  ?  " 

"  Oh,  really,  really,"  he  assured  her. 

"  And  you  want  to  do  something  nice  to  make  it  up  to 
me?" 

"Anything,"  he  promised,  smiling  at  her  as  at  a  child. 

"  You've  promised !  You've  promised !  "  She  indulged 
herself  in  a  noiseless  hand-clasp.  "  Well,  then,  the  forfeit 
is  to  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"All  about  what?" 

"  Goodness  gracious !  Don't  you  remember  ?  That's 
what  we  were  both  horrid  about.  I  asked  you  to  tell  me 
about  it,  and  you  — " 

He  remembered,  evidently  with  an  amusement  not  en- 
tirely free  from  annoyance.  "  Oh,  I'm  safe.  I'll  never  see 
you  to  tell  you." 

She  sat  down  on  the  bottom  step  and  drew  her  white 
skirts  about  her.  "What's  the  matter  with  right  now?" 
she  asked,  smiling. 

"  I've  got  to  earn  my  living  right  now,"  he  objected, 
beginning  with  a  swift  deftness  to  bore  a  tiny  hole. 

She  was  diverted  for  an  instant.  "  What  are  you  doing 
to  our  nice  old  newel-post  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I  thought  they 
said  you  were  going  to  set  up  the  new  sideboard." 

"  Oh,  that's  no  job  at  all ;  it's  done.  Didn't  you  hear 
me  pushing  and  banging  things  around?  Now  I've  the  job 
before  me  of  fitting  the  very  latest  thing  in  newel-posts  in 
place  of  your  old  one." 

The  girl  returned  to  her  first  attack.     "  Well,  anyhow, 


48  The  Squirrel-Cage 

if  it's  a  long  job,  it's  all  the  better.     Go  ahead  and  talk  at 
the  same  time.     You  won't  feel  you're  wasting  time." 

Their  low-toned  talk  and  the  glimmering  light  of  the  hall 
made  them  seem  oddly  intimate.  Lydia  expressed  this  feel- 
ing while  Rankin  stood  looking  doubtfully  at  her,  a  little 
daunted  by  the  pretty  relentlessness  of  her  insistence. 
"  You  see,  you're  not  nearly  so  much  a  stranger  to  me  as  I 
am  to  you.  Remember  how  I  sewed  and  listened.  I'm  a 
grown-up  little  pitcher,  and  my  ears  are  still  large.  I  was 
remembering  just  now,  before  you  came  in,  how  strangely 
you  used  to  talk  to  Dr.  Melton,  and  I  thought  it  wasn't  so 
surprising,  after  all,  your  doing  'most  anything  queer." 

Rankin  laughed  as  he  bent  over  his  tools.  "  Little 
pitchers  have  tongues,  too,  I  see." 

Either  Lydia  felt  herself  more  familiar  with  her  inter- 
locutor than  before,  or  one  result  of  her  meditation  had 
been  the  loss  of  her  excessive  fear  of  wounding  his  feelings. 
She  spoke  now  quite  confidently,  "  But,  honestly,  what  in 
the  world  did  you  do  it  for  ?  " 

"It?"     He  made  her  define  herself. 

"  Oh,  you  know !  Give  up  everything  —  lose  your  chance 
in  society,  and  poke  off  into  the  woods  to  be  a  common  — ' 
In  spite  of  her  new  boldness  she  faltered  here. 

He  supplied  the  word,  with  a  flash  of  mirth.  "  Don't 
be  afraid  to  say  it  right  out  —  even  such  an  awful  term  as 
workman,  or  carpenter.  I  can  bear  it." 

"  I  knew  it ! "  Lydia  exclaimed.  "  As  I  was  thinking  it 
over  on  the  stairs  just  now,  I  said  to  myself  that  probably 
you  weren't  a  bit  apologetic  about  it;  probably  you  had 
some  queer  reason  for  being  proud  of  yourself  for  doing  it." 

He  cast  a  startled  look  at  her.  "  You're  the  only  person 
in  Endbury  with  imagination  enough  to  guess  that." 

"  But  why  ?  why  ?  why  ?  "  she  urged  him,  her  flexible  eye- 
brows raised  in  the  eagerness  of  her  inquiry.  "  I  feel  just  as 
though  I  were  going  to  hear  the  answer  to  a  perfectly  mad- 
deningly unanswerable  riddle." 

He  had  another  turn  in  his  attempt  at  evasion.  "  It 
wouldn't  be  polite  to  tell  you  the  answer,  for  what  I'm 


The  Day  Begins  49 

trying  to  do  is  to  get  out  of  being  what  everybody  you 
know  thinks  is  the  only  way  to  be  —  except  Dr.  Melton,  of 
course." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  '  all  the  people  I  know,' "  she 
challenged  him  explicitly. 

He  laughed  and  shook  his  head.  "  Oh,  I've  nothing  new 
to  say  about  them.  Everybody  has  said  it,  from  Ecclesi- 
astes  to  Tolstoi." 

"  They  never  say  anything  about  just  ordinary  folks  in 
Endbury  that  I  know." 

Rankin  looked  at  her  whimsically.     "  Oh,  don't  they  ?  " 

"  Do  they  ?  "  Lydia  wondered  at  the  possibility.  Pres- 
ently she  brought  out,  as  a  patently  absurd  supposition, 
"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  Endbury  people  are  wicked  ?  " 

"  Do  you  think  that  none  but  wicked  people  are  written 
about  in  serious  books  ?  No ;  Lord,  no !  I  don't  think  they 
are  wicked  —  just  mistaken." 

"  What  about  ?  Now  we're  getting  warm.  I'll  guess  in 
a  minute." 

He  looked  a  little  sadly  down  at  her  bright,  eager  face. 
"  I'm  afraid  you  would  never  guess.  It's  all  gone  into  your 
blood.  You  breathe  it  in  and  out  as  you  live,  every  minute." 

"  What  ?  what  ?  what  ?  You  can't  say  it,  you  see,  when  it 
comes  right  down  to  the  matter." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  can ;  I  can  ask  you  if  it  wouldn't  be  a  tragedy 
if  they  should  all  be  killing  themselves  to  get  what  they 
really  don't  want  and  don't  need,  and  starving  for  things 
they  could  easily  have  by  just  putting  out  their  hands." 

Lydia's  blankness  was  immense. 

He  said,  with  ironic  triumph :  "  You  see,  when  I  do  say 
it  you  can't  make  anything  out  of  it."  After  this  he  turned 
for  a  time  all  his  attention  to  his  work. 

He  had  evidently  reached  a  critical  point  in  his  under- 
taking. Lydia  watched  in  silence  the  deft  manipulations  of 
his  strong,  brown  fingers,  wondering  at  the  eager,  almost 
sparkling,  alertness  with  which  he  went  from  one  step  to 
another  of  the  process  that  seemed  unaccountably  compli- 
cated to  her.  After  he  had  finally  lifted  the  heavy  piece 


£o  The  Squirrel-Cage 

of  wood  into  place,  handling  its  great  weight  with  assur- 
ance, and  had  submitted  the  joint  to  the  closest  inspection, 
he  gave  a  low  whistle  of  satisfaction  with  himself,  and 
stepped  back  to  get  the  general  effect.  As  he  did  so  he  hap- 
pened to  glance  at  the  girl,  drooping  rather  listlessly  on  the 
stair.  He  paused  instantly,  with  an  exclamation  of  dismay. 

"  No ;  I'm  not  going  to  cry,"  Lydia  told  him  with  a  very 
small  smile,  "  but  it  would  serve  you  right  if  I  did." 

The  workman  wiped  his  forehead  and  surveyed  her  in 
perplexity.  "  What,  can  I  do  for  you  ?  "  he  asked. 

"If  you're  really  serious  in  asking  that,"  said  Lydia  with 
dignity,  "  I'll  tell  you.  You  can  take  for  granted  that  I  am 
not  an  idiot  or  a  child  and  talk  to  me  sensibly.  Dr.  Melton 
does.  And  you  can  tell  me  what  you  started  out  to  —  the 
real  reason  why  you  are  a  common  carpenter  instead  of  in 
the  insurance  business.  Of  course  if  you  think  it  is  none 
of  my  concern,  that's  another  matter.  But  you  said  you 
would." 

Rankin  looked  a  little  abashed  by  the  grave  seriousness 
of  this  appeal,  although  he  smiled  at  its  form.  "  You  speak 
as  though  I  had  my  reason  tied  up  in  a  package  about  me, 
ready  to  hand  out." 

Lydia  said  nothing,  but  did  not  drop  her  earnest  eyes. 

He  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and  returned  this 
intent  gaze,  a  new  expression  on  his  face.  Then  picking  up 
a  tool,  and  drawing  a  long  breath,  he  said,  with  the  accent 
of  a  man  who  takes  an  unexpected  resolution :  "  Well,  I 
will  tell  you." 

He  returned  to  his  work,  tightening  various  small  screws 
under  the  railing,  speaking,  as  he  did  so,  in  a  reasonable, 
quiet  tone,  with  none  of  the  touch  of  badinage  which  had 
thus  far  underlain  his  manner  to  the  girl.  "  It's  very  sim- 
ple—  nothing  romantic  or  sudden  about  it  all.  I  did  not 
like  the  insurance  business  as  I  saw  it  from  the  inside,  and 
the  more  I  saw  of  it,  the  less  I  liked  it.  I  couldn't  see  how 
I  could  earn  my  living  at  it  and  arrive  at  the  age  of  forty 
with  an  honest  scruple  left.  Not  that  the  insurance  business 
is,  probably,  any  worse  than  any  other  —  only  I  knew  about 


The  Day  Begins  51 

it  from  the  inside.  So  far  as  I  could  guess  the  businesses  my 
friends  were  in  weren't  very  different.  At  least,  I  didn't 
think  I  could  improve  things  by  changing  to  them.  Also, 
it  was  going  to  grow  more  and  more  absorbing  —  or,  at 
least,  that  was  the  way  it  affected  the  older  men  I  knew  — 
so  that  at  forty  I  shouldn't  have  any  other  interests  than 
getting  ahead  of  other  people  in  the  line  of  insurance. 

"  Now,  what  was  I  to  do  about  it  ?  I  can't  make  speeches, 
and  nobody  but  crack-brained  soreheads  like  me  would  listen 
to  them  if  I  did.  I'm  not  a  great  philosopher,  with  a  cure 
for  things.  But  I  didn't  want  to  fight  so  hard  to  get  unnec- 
essary things  for  myself  that  I  kept  other  people  from  hav- 
ing the  necessaries,  and  didn't  give  myself  time  to  enjoy 
things  that  are  best  worth  enjoying.  What  could  I  do?  I 
bothered  the  life  out  of  Dr.  Melton  and  myself  for  ages 
before  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  thing  to  do,  if  I  didn't 
like  the  life  I  was  in,  was  to  get  out  of  it  and  do  something 
harmless,  at  least,  if  I  didn't  have  gumption  enough  to  think 
of  something  worth  while,  that  might  make  things  better. 

"  I  like  the  cabinet-maker's  trade,  and  I  couldn't  see  that 
practicing  it  would  interfere  with  my  growing  all  the  honest 
scruples  that  were  in  me.  Oh,  I  know  that  it's  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  for  a  carpenter  to  turn  out  bad  work 
for  the  sake  of  making  a  little  more  money  every  day;  I 
haven't  any  illusions  about  the  sanctity  of  the  hand-crafts. 
But,  anyhow,  I  saw  that  as  a  maverick  cabinet-maker  I 
could  be  pretty  much  my  own  master.  If  I  had  strength 
of  mind  enough  I  could  be  honest  without  endless  friction 
with  partners,  employers,  banks,  creditors,  employes,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  spider  web  of  business  life.  At  any 
rate,  it  looked  as  though  there  were  a  chance  for  me  to 
lead  the  life  I  wanted,  and  I  had  an  idea  that  if  I  started 
myself  in  square  and  straight,  maybe  after  a  little  while  I 
could  see  clearer  about  how  to  help  other  people  to  occu- 
pations that  would  let  them  live  a  little  as  well  as  make 
money,  and  let  them  grow  a  few  scruples  into  the  bargain. 

"  You  see,  there's  nothing  mysterious  about  it  —  nor  in- 
teresting. Just  ordinary.  I'm  living  the  way  I  do  because 


'$2  The  Squirrel-Cage 

I'm  not  smart  enough  to  think  of  a  better  way.  But  one 
advantage  of  it  is  that  I  have  a  good  deal  of  time  to  think 
about  things.  Maybe  I'll  think  of  a  way  to  help,  later. 
And,  anyway,  just  to  look  at  me  is  proof  that  you  don't 
have  to  get  ground  up  in  the  hopper  like  everybody  else  or 
shut  the  door  of  the  industrial  squirrel-cage  on  yourself  in 
order  not  to  starve.  Perhaps  that'll  give  some  cleverer' 
person  the  courage  to  start  out  on  his  own  tangent." 

Lydia  drew  a  long  breath  at  the  conclusion  of  this  state- 
ment. "  Well  — "  she  said,  inconclusively ;  "  well! "  After 
a  pause  she  advanced,  "  My  sister's  husband  is  in  the  insur- 
ance business." 

"  You  see,"  said  the  workman,  drilling  a  hole  with  great 
rapidity,  "  you  see  I  ought  not  to  talk  to  you.  I  can't  with- 
out being  impolite." 

Lydia  seemed  in  no  haste  to  assure  him  that  he  had 
not  been.  She  pulled  absently  a  loose  lock  of  hair  —  a  little- 
girl  trick  that  came  back  to  her  in  moments  of  abstraction  — 
and  looked  down  at  her  feet.  When  she  looked  up,  it  was 
to  say  with  a  bewildered  air,  "  But  a  man  has  to  earn  his 
living." 

Rankin  made  a  gesture  of  impatience,  and  stopped  work- 
ing to  answer  this  remark.  "A  living  isn't  hard  to  earn. 
Any  healthy  man  can  do  that.  It's  earning  food  for  his 
vanity,  or  his  wife's,  that  kills  the  average  man.  It's  cod- 
dling his  moral  cowardice  that  takes  the  heart  out  of  him. 
Don't  you  remember  what  Emerson  says  —  Melton's  always 
quoting  it — 'Most  of  our  expense  is  for  conformity  to 
other  men's  ideas  ?  It's  for  cake  that  the  average  man  runs 
in  debt/  He  must  have  everything  that  anyone  else  has, 
whether  he  wants  it  or  not.  A  house  ever  so  much  bigger 
and  finer  than  he  needs,  with  ever  so  many  more  things 
in  it  than  belong  there.  He  must  keep  his  wife  idle  and 
card-playing  because  other  men's  wives  are.  He  must  have 
his  children  do  what  everyone  else's  children  do,  whether 
it's  bad  for  their  characters  or  not.  Ah!  the  children! 
That's  the  worst  of  it  all !  To  bring  them  up  so  that  these 
futile  .complications  will  be  essentials  of  life  to  them !  To 


The  Day  Begins  53 

teach  them  that  health  and  peace  of  mind  are  not  too  high 
a  price  for  a  woman  to  pay  for  what  is  called  social  distinc- 
tion, and  that  a  man  must  —  if  he  can  get  it  in  no  other 
way  —  pay  his  self-respect  and  the  life  of  his  individuality 
for  what  is  called  success — " 

Lydia  broke  in  with  a  sophisticated  amusement  at  his 
heat.  "Why,  you're  talking  about  Newport,  or  the  Four 
Hundred  of  New  York  —  if  there  is  any  such  thing!  The 
rest  of  America  —  why,  any  European  would  say  we're 
as  primitive  as  Aztecs!  They  do  say  so!  Endbury's  not 
complicated.  Good  gracious!  A  little,  plain,  middle-west- 
ern town,  where  everybody  that  is  anybody  knows  everybody 
else!" 

"  No ;  it's  not  complicated  compared  with  European  stand- 
ards, but  it's  more  so  than  it  was.  Why,  in  Heaven's  name, 
should  it  strain  every  nerve  to  make  itself  as  complicated 
as  possible  as  fast  as  it  can?  We're  free  yet  —  we're  not 
Europeans  so  shaken  down  into  a  social  rut  that  only  a 
red  revolution  can  get  us  out  of  it.  Why  can't  we  decide 
on  a  rational  — "  He  broke  off  to  say,  gloomily :  "  The 
devil  of  it  is  that  we  don't  decide  anything.  We  just  slide 
along  thinking  of  something  else.  If  people  would  only 
give,  just  once  in  their  lives,  the  same  amount  of  serious 
reflection  to  what  they  want  to  get  out  of  life  that  they  give 
to  the  question  of  what  they  want  to  get  out  of  a  two-weeks' 
vacation,  there  aren't  many  folks  —  yes,  even  here  in  End- 
bury  that  seems  so  harmless  to  you  because  it's  so  familiar 
—  who  wouldn't  be  horrified  at  the  aimless  procession  of 
their  busy  days  and  the  trivial  false  standards  they  sub- 
scribe to  with  their  blood  and  sweat." 

"  My  goodness !  "  broke  in  Lydia. 

The  exclamation  came  from  her  extreme  surprise,  not 
only  at  the  extraordinary  doctrine  enunciated,  but  at  the 
experience,  new  to  her,  of  hearing  convictions  spoken  of 
in  ordinary  conversation.  The  workman  took  it,  however, 
for  a  mocking  comment  on  his  sudden  fluency.  He  gave 
a  whimsical  grimace,  and  said,  as  he  began  picking  up  his 
tools,  "  Ah,  I  shouldn't  have  given  in  to  you.  When  I 


54  The  Squirrel-Cage 

get  started  I  never  can  stop."  His  expression  altered 
darkly.  "  But  I  hate  all  that  sort  of  thing  so !  I  hate  it !  " 

Lydia  shrank  back  from  him,  startled,  but  aroused. 
"  Well,  I  hate  hate !  "  she  cried  with  energy.  "  It's  horrid 
to  hate  anything  at  all,  but  most  of  all  what's  wrong  and 
doesn't  know  it's  wrong.  That  needs  help,  not  hate." 

He  had  slung  his  tool-box  on  his  shoulder  before  she 
began  speaking,  and  now  stood,  ready  for  departure,  looking 
at  her  intently.  Even  in  the  dim  light  of  the  hall  she  was 
aware  of  a  wonderful  change  in  his  face.  She  was  startled 
and  thrilled  by  the  expression  of  his  eyes  in  the  moment 
of  silence  that  followed. 

Finally,  "  You've  given  me  something  to  remember,"  he 
said,  his  voice  vibrating,  and  turned  away. 


CHAPTER  VI 
LYDIA'S  GODFATHER 

LYDIA  stood  where  he  left  her,  listening  to  the  sound  of 
his  footsteps  die  down  the  walk  outside.  She  was  still 
standing  there  when,  some  time  later,  the  door  to  the  din- 
ing-room behind  her  opened  and  a  tiny  elderly  man  trotted 
across  the  hall  to  the  stairs.  Lydia  recognized  him  before 
he  saw  that  she  was  there,  so  that  he  exclaimed  in  surprise 
and  pleasure  as  she  came  running  toward  him,  her  face 
quivering  like  a  child's  about  to  weep. 

"Oh,  dear  Godfather!"  she  cried,  as  she  flung  herself 
on  him ;  "I'm  so  glad  you've  come !  I  never  wanted  so 
much  to  see  you !  " 

He  was  startled  to  feel  that  she  was  trembling  and  that 
her  cheek  against  his  forehead,  for  she  was  taller  than  he, 
was  burning  hot.  "  Good  gracious,  my  dear ! "  he  said,  in 
the  shrill  voice  his  size  indicated,  "  anybody'd  think  you 
were  the  patient  I  came  to  see." 

His  voice,  though  high,  was  very  sweet  —  a  quality  that 
made  it  always  sound  odd,  almost  foreign,  in  the  midst  of 
the  neutral,  colorless  middle-western  tones  about  him.  He 
spoke  with  a  Southern  accent,  dropping  his  r's,  clipping 
some  vowels  and  broadening  others,  but  there  was  no  South- 
ern drawl  in  the  clicking,  telegraphic  speed  of  his  speech. 
He  now  looked  up  at  his  tall  godchild  and  said  without  a 
smile :  "  If  you'll  kindly  come  down  here  where  I  can  get 
at  you,  I'll  shake  you  for  being  so  foolish.  You  needn't 
be  alarmed  about  your  mother." 

Lydia  recoiled  from  the  little  man  as  impulsively  as  she 
had  rushed  upon  him.  "Why,  how  awful!"  she  accused 
herself,  horrified.  "  I'd  forgotten  Mother ! " 

55 


'$6  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Dr.  Melton  took  off  his  hat  and  laid  it  on  the  hall  shelf. 
"  I  will  climb  up  on  a  chair  to  shake  you,"  he  continued 
cheerfully,  "  if  already,  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours, 
you're  indulging  in  nerves,  as  these  broken  and  meaningless 
ejaculations  seem  to  indicate." 

He  picked  up  a  palm-leaf  fan,  lost  himself  in  a  big  hall- 
chair,  and  began  to  fan  himself  vigorously.  He  looked  very 
hot  and  breathless,  but  he  flowed  steadily  on. 

"  I  can't  diagnose  you  yet,  you  know,  without  looking  at 
you,  the  way  I  do  your  mother,  so  you'll  have  to  give  me 
some  notion  of  what's  the  occasion  of  these  alternate  seizures 
and  releases  of  a  defenseless  Lilliputian  godfather."  He 
made  a  confident  gesture  toward  the  upper  part  of  the  house 
with  his  fan.  "  About  your  mother  —  I  know  without  going 
upstairs  that  she  is  floored  with  one  or  another  manifesta- 
tion of  the  great  disease  of  social-ambitionitis.  But  calm 
yourself.  It's  not  so  bad  as  it  seems  when  you've  got  the 
right  doctor.  I've  practiced  for  thirty  years  among  End- 
bury  ladies.  They  can't  spring  anything  new  on  me.  I've 
taken  your  mother  through  doily  fever  induced  by  the  change 
from  table-cloths  to  bare  tops,  through  portiere  inflamma- 
tion, through  afternoon  tea  distemper,  through  art-nouveau 
prostration  and  mission  furniture  palsy,  not  to  speak  of  a 
horrible  attack  of  acute  insanity  over  the  necessity  for  hav- 
ing her  maids  wear  caps.  I  think  you  can  trust  me,  what- 
ever dodge  the  old  malady  is  working  on  her." 

He  had  run  on  volubly,  to  give  Lydia  time  to  recover 
herself,  his  keen  blue  eyes  fixing  her,  and  now,  as  she 
wavered  into  something  like  a  smile  at  his  chatter,  he  shot 
a  question  at  her  with  a  complete  change  of  manner :  "  But 
what's  the  matter  with  you?" 

Lydia  started  as  though  he  had  suddenly  clapped  her  on 
the  shoulder.  "I  —  why,  I  —  just  — "  she  hesitated,  "  why, 
I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me."  She  brought 
it  out  with  the  most  honest  surprise  in  the  world. 

Dr.  Melton's  approval  of  this  answer  was  immense. 
"  Why,  Lydia,  I'm  proud  of  you !  You're  one  in  a  thou- 
sand. You'll  break  the  hearts  of  everyone  who  knows  you 


Lydia's  Godfather  57 

by  turning  out  a  sensible  woman  if  you  don't  look  out.  I 
don't  believe  there's  another  girl  in  Endbury  who  would 
have  had  the  nerve  to  tell  the  truth  and  not  fake  up  a  head- 
ache, or  a  broken  heart,  or  Weltschmerz,  or  some  such 
trifle,  for  a  reason."  He  pulled  himself  up  to  his  feet. 
"  Of  course,  you  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  you, 
my  dear.  I  do.  I  know  everything,  and  can't  do  a  thing. 
That's  me !  Physically,  you're  upset  by  Endbury  heat  after 
an  ocean  voyage,  and  mentally  it's  the  reaction  caused  by 
your  subsidence  into  private  life  after  being  the  central 
figure  of  the  returned  traveler.  Last  evening,  now,  with 
that  mob  of  friends  and  the  family  pawing  at  you  and  trying 
to  cram-jam  you  back  into  the  Endbury  box  and  shut  the 
lid  down — 'that  was  enough  to  kill  anybody  with  a  nerve 
in  her  body.  What's  the  history  of  the  morning?  I  hope 
you  slept  late." 

Lydia  shook  her  head.  "  No ;  I  was  up  ever  so  early. 
—  Marietta  came  over  to  borrow  the  frames  for  drying 
curtains,  and  stayed  to  breakfast." 

Something  about  her  accent  struck  oddly  on  the  trained 
sensitiveness  of  the  physician's  ear.  Her  tone  rang  empty, 
as  with  something  kept  back. 

"  Marietta's  been  snapping  at  you,"  he  diagnosed  rapidly. 

"  Well,  a  little,"  Lydia  admitted. 

The  doctor  laid  the  palm-leaf  fan  aside  and  took  Lydia's 
slim  fingers  in  both  his  firm,  sinewy  hands.  "  My  dear,  I'm 
going  to  do  as  I  have  always  done  with  you,  and  talk  with 
you  as  though  you  were  a  grown-up  person  and  could  take 
your  share  in  understanding  and  bearing  family  problems. 
Your  sister  Marietta  is  not  a  very  happy  woman.  She  has 
too  many  of  your  father's  brains  for  the  life  she's  been 
shunted  into.  She  might  be  damning  up  a  big  river  with 
a  finely  constructed  concrete  dam,  and  what  she  is  giving 
all  her  strength  to  is  trying  to  hold  back  a  muddy  little 
trickle  with  her  bare  hands.  The  achievement  of  her  life 
is  to  give  on  a  two-thousand-a-year  income  the  appearance 
of  having  five  thousand  like  your  father.  She  does  it; 
she's  a  remarkably  forceful  woman,  but  it  frets  her.  She 


$8  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ought  to  be  in  better  business,  and  she  knows  it,  though 
she  won't  admit  it.  So,  don't  you  mind  if  she's  sharp- 
tpngued  once  in  a  while.  It's  when  she  feels  the  muddy 
water  oozing  through  her  fingers." 

He  fancied  that  Lydia's  eyes  on  his  were  a  Mttle  blank, 
perhaps  absent,  and  broke  off  with  a  short  laugh.  He  was 
quite  hardened  to  the  fact  that  people  never  understood 
his  fanciful  metaphors,  but  Lydia,  as  a  child,  had  used 
to  have  a  curious  intuitive  divination  of  his  meaning. 
After  his  laugh  he  sighed  and  turned  the  talk. 

"  Well,  and  has  Flora  Burgess  been  after  you  to  get 
your  impression  of  Endbury  as  compared  with  Europe? 
Your  mother  said  she  wanted  an  interview  with  you  for 
next  Sunday's  Society  Notes." 

Lydia  smiled.  The  subject  was  an  old  joke  with  them. 
"  No ;  she  hasn't  appeared  yet.  I  haven't  seen  her  —  not 
since  my  birthday  a  year1  ago,  the  time  she  described  the 
supper-table  as  a  '  glittering,  scintillating  mass  of  cut-glass 
and  silver,  and  yet  without  what  could  really  be  called  osten- 
tation.' Isn't  she  delicious!  How  is  the  little  old  thing, 


anyway 


Still  trotting  industriously  about  Endbury  back  yards 
sowing  the  dragon's  teeth  of  her  idiotic  ideas  and  stand- 
ards." 

"  Oh,  I  remember,  you  don't  like  her,"  said  Lydia. 
"  She  always  seems  just  funny  to  me  —  funny  and  pathetic. 
She's  so  dowdy,  and  reverential  to  folks  with  money,  and 
enjoys  other  people's  good  times  so  terrifically." 

"  She's  like  some  political  bosses  —  admirable  in  private 
life,  but  a  menace  to  the  community  just  the  same." 

Lydia  laughed  involuntarily,  in  spite  of  her  preoccupa- 
tion. "  Flora  Burgess  a  menace  to  the  community !  " 

The  doctor  turned  away  and  began  to  mount  the  stairs. 
"  Me  and  Cassandra ! "  he  called  over  his  shoulder  in  his 
high,  sweet  treble.  "  Just  you  wait  and  see  !  " 

He  disappeared  down  the  upper  hall,  finding  his  way 
about  the  darkened  house  with  a  familiarity  that  betokened 
long  practice. 


Lydia's  Godfather  59 

Lydia  sat  down  on  the  bottom  step  to  wait  for  his  return. 
The  clock  in  the  dining-room  struck  twelve.  It  came  over 
her  with  a  clap  that  but  half  a  day  had  passed  since  she  had 
run  out  into  the  dawn.  For  an  instant  she  had  the  naive, 
melodramatic  instinct  of  youth  to  deck  out  its  little  events 
in  the  guise  of  crises.  She  began  to  tell  herself  with  gusto 
that  she  had  passed  some  important  turning-point  in  her 
life;  when,  as  was  not  infrequent  with  her,  she  lost  the 
thread  of  her  thought  in  a  sudden  mental  confusion  which, 
like  a  curtain  of  fog,  shut  her  off  from  definite  reflection. 
Complicated  things  that  moved  rapidly  always  tired  Lydia. 
She  had  an  enormous  capacity  for  quiet  and  tranquillity. 
To-day  she  felt  that  more  complicated  things  were  moving 
rapidly  inside  her  head  than  ever  before  —  as  though  she 
had  tried  to  keep  track  of  the  revolutions  of  a  wheel  and 
had  lost  her  count  and  could  now  only  stare  stupidly  at  the 
spokes,  whirling  till  they  blended  into  one  blur.  What  was 
this  Endbury  life  she  had  come  back  to?  What  in  the 
world  had  that  man  been  talking  about?  What  a  strange 
person  he  was!  How  very  bright  his  eyes  were  when  he 
looked  at  you  —  as  though  he  were,  somehow,  seeing  you 
more  than  most  people  did.  What  did  the  doctor  mean 
by  all  that  about  Marietta?  It  had  never  occurred  to  her 
that  the  life  of  anyone  about  her  might  have  been  different 
from  what  it  was.  What  else  was  there  for  people  to  do 
but  what  everybody  else  did?  It  was  all  very  unsettling 
and,  in  this  heat  and  loneliness,  daunting. 

Through  this  vague  discomfort  there  presently  pierced  a 
positive  apprehension  of  definite  unpleasantness.  She  would 
have  to  tell  her  mother  that  she  had  spent  the  whole  morn- 
ing talking  to  Mr.  Rankin,  and  her  mother  would  be  cross, 
and  would  say  such  —  Lydia  remembered  as  in  a  distant 
dream  her  supreme  content  with  life  of  only  a  few  hours 
earlier.  It  seemed  a  very  bewildering  matter  to  her  now. 

Ought  she  so  certainly  to  tell  her  mother?  She  lingered 
for  a  moment  over  this  possibility.  Then,  "  Oh,  of  course !  " 
she  said  aloud,  flushing  with  an  angry  shame  at  her 
moment's  parley  with  deceit. 


60  The  Squirrel-Cage 

She  heard  her  mother's  door  open  and  turned  to  see 
the  doctor  running  down  the  stairs,  his  wrinkled  little  face 
very  grave.  "You  were  right,  Lydia,  to  be  anxious  about 
your  mother,  and  I  am  an  old  fool !  There  is  no  fool  like 
a  fluent  fool!  I'm  afraid  she's  in  for  quite  a  siege. 
There's  no  danger,  thank  Heaven!  but  I  don't  believe  she 
can  be  about  for  a  month  or  more.  I'm  going  to  'phone  for 
a  trained  nurse.  Just  see  that  nobody  disturbs  her,  will 
you?" 

He  darted  away,  leaving  Lydia  leaning  against  the  newel- 
post,  gasping.  The  clock  in  the  dining-room  chimed  the 
quarter-hour.  She  cried  out  to  herself,  as  she  climbed  the 
stairs  heavily,  that  she  could  not  stand  it  to  have  things 
happen  to  her  so  fast.  If  all  Endbury  days  were  going  to 
be  like  this  one  — 

She  was  for  a  moment  brought  to  a  standstill  by  a 
realization  of  depths  within  herself  that  she  had  not 
dreamed  of.  She  realized,  horrified,  that  on  hearing  the 
doctor's  verdict  her  first  thought  —  gone  before  it  was 
formulated,  but  still  her  first  thought  —  had  been  one  of 
relief  that  now  she  need  not  tell  her  mother. 

It  had  not  occurred  to  her  at  all,  nor  did  it  now,  that  she 
either  should  or  should  not  tell  her  father. 


CHAPTER  VII 
OUTSIDE  THE  LABYRINTH 

THE  Black  Rock  woods  lay  glowing  under  the  cloudy 
autumn  sky  like  a  heap  of  live  coals,  the  maples  still 
quivering  in  scarlet,  the  chestnuts  sunk  into  a  clear  yellow 
flame,  the  oaks,  parched  by  the  September  heat,  burnt 
out  into  rusty  browns.  Above  them,  the  opalescent  haze 
of  October  rose  like  a  faint  blue  smoke,  but  within  the 
woods  the  subdued  light  was  richly  colored,  like  that 
which  passes  through  the  stained  glass  of  a  great  cathedral. 
The  first  of  the  fallen  leaves  lay  in  pools  of  gold  in  the 
hollows  of  the  brown  earth,  where  the  light  breezes  had 
drifted  them. 

It  was,  for  the  moment,  singularly  quiet,  so,  that,  as 
Lydia  walked  quickly  along  the  footpath,  the  pleasant 
rustle  of  her  progress  was  the  only  sound  she  heard. 
Under  a  large  chestnut  she  paused,  gathering  her  amber- 
colored  draperies  about  her  and  glancing  uncertainly 
ahead  to  where  the  path  forked.  She  looked  a  yellow 
leaf  blown  by  some  current  of  the  air  unfelt  by  the  rest  of 
the  forest  and  caught  against  the  rough  bark  of  the  tree. 
After  hesitating  for  a  moment,  she  drifted  slowly  along 
the  right-hand  path,  looking  about  her  with  dreamy, 
dazzled  eyes.  From  time  to  time,  she  stopped  and  lifted 
her  face  to  the  light  ^.nd  color  above  her,  and  once  she 
stood  a  long  time  leaning  against  a  tree,  stirring  with  the 
tip  of  her  parasol  a  heap  of  burning  maple  leaves.  Under 
her  drooping  hat  her  face  was  almost  vacant  in  a  wide  beat- 
itude of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  day.  When  she  walked 
on  again  it  was  with  a  lighter  and  lighter  step,  as  though  the 
silence  had  come  to  have  a  lovely  meaning  for  her  which  she 
feared  to  disturb. 

6r 


62  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  path  turned  sharply  after  passing  through  a 
thicket  of  ruddy  brambles,  and  she  found  herself  in  a 
little  clearing  which  the  haze  of  the  upper  air  descended 
to  fill.  The  yellow  chestnuts  stood  in  a  ring  about  the 
sunburnt  grass.  It  was  like  a  golden  cup  filled  with  some 
magic,  impalpable  draught. 

Through  this  she  now  saw  a  rough  little  house,  brown 
as  an  oak  leaf,  with  a  wide  veranda,  under  which,  before 
a  work-bench,  sat  Daniel  Rankin.  His  tanned  arms 
moved  rhythmically  backward  and  forward,  but  his  ruddy 
head  was  high,  and  his  eyes,  roving  about  the  leafy  walls 
of  the  clearing,  caught  sight  of  Lydia  as  soon  as  she 
had  turned  the  corner.  She  stopped  short,  with  a  startled 
gesture,  on  the  edge  of  the  woods,  but  remained  standing 
quietly  while  Rankin  sprang  up  from  his  seat  and  walked 
toward  her  smiling. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Emery,"  he  called  welcomingly.  "  I  didn't 
recognize  you  for  a  minute.  Every  once  in  a  while  a 
young  lady  or  a  child  loses  her  way  from  a  picnic  in 
the  woods  and  stumbles  into  my  settlement.  I  always 
have  to  hurry  to  show  them  there's  no  danger  of  the  wild 
man  who  lives  in  that  house  eating  them  up."  He  came 
up  to  her  now,  and  put  out  his  hand  with  a  frank  pleasure. 

"  I  wasn't  afraid,"  said  Lydia ;  "  I  was  startled  for  a 
minute,  but  I  knew  right  away  it  must  be  your  house. 
You  described  it  to  me,  you  know." 

"  It's  very  much  flattered  that  you  remember  its  por- 
trait,"  said  the  owner.  "  Won't  you  honor  it  some  more 
by  sitting  down  in  its  veranda  for  a  while?  Or  must  I 
take  you  back  to  your  picnic  party  at  once  ?  " 

Lydia  moved  on,  looking  about  her  at  the  piles  of 
boards,  half  hidden  by  vines,  at  the  pool  of  clear  water 
welling  up  through  white  sand  in  front  of  the  house,  and 
at  the  low  rough  building,  partly  covered  with  woodbine 
ruby-red  against  the  weather-beaten  wood. 

"  My  picnic  party's  gone  home,"  she  explained.  "  It 
was  only  Marietta  and  her  little  boy,  anyhow.  My  sister 
thought  it  was  going  to  rain,  and  took  the  quickest  way 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  63 

home.  I  told  Marietta  I'd  walk  across  and  take  the  Gar- 
field  Avenue  trolley  line.  I  must  have  taken  a  wrong  turn 
in  the  path." 

They  had  reached  the  veranda  now,  and  Lydia  sank 
into  the  chair  which  Rankin  offered  her.  She  smiled  her 
thanks  silently,  her  face  still  steeped  in  quiet  ecstasy, 
and  for  a  long  time  she  said  nothing.  The  quick  re- 
sponsiveness that  was  at  all  times  her  most  marked  char- 
acteristic answered  this  rare  mood  of  Nature  with  an 
intensity  almost  frightening  in  its  visible  joy. 

Rankin  also  said  nothing,  looking  at  her  reflectively 
and  stroking  his  close-clipped  red  beard.  Above  the 
faded  brown  of  his  work-shirt,  his  face  glowed  with  color. 
In  the  silent  interval  of  the  girl's  slow  emergence  from  her 
reverie,  his  gaze  upon  her  was  so  steady  that  when  Lydia 
finally  glanced  up  at  him  he  could  not  for  a  moment  look 
away.  The  limpid  unconsciousness  of  her  eyes  changed 
into  a  startled  look  of  inquiry,  as  though  he  had  spoken  and 
she  had  not  understood.  Then  a  flush  rose  to  her  cheeks, 
she  looked  down  and  away  in  a  momentary  confusion, 
moved  in  her  chair,  and  began  to  talk  at  random. 

"  So  this  is  where  you  live.  It's  lovely.  It  looks  like 
a  fairy  story  —  the  little  house  in  the  wood,  you  know 
—  nothing  seems  real  to-day  —  the  woods  —  it  makes  me 
want  to  cry,  they  are  so  beautiful.  I've  been  wondering 
and  wondering  what  outdoors  was  looking  like.  You  know 
poor  Mother  is  sick,  and  though  she's  not  so  awfully  sick, 
and  of  course  we've  a  trained  nurse  for  her,  still  I've 
had  to  be  housekeeper  and  I  haven't  had  time  to  breathe. 
The  second  girl  left  right  off  because  of  the  extra  work 
she  thought  sickness  would  make,  but  it  seems  to  me 
we've  had  a  million  new  second  girls  in  the  three  weeks. 
It's  been  awful!  I  haven't  had  time  to  get  out  at  all  or 
to  see  anybody." 

She  was  quite  herself  now,  and  confided  her  troubles 
with  a  naive  astonishment,  as  though  they  were  new  to 
humanity. 

"  Yes ;    I've    heard    ladies    say    before    that    it's    quite 


64  The  Squirrel-Cage 

awful,"  agreed  her  companion  gravely.  He  swung  him- 
self up  to  sit  on  his  work-bench,  his  long  legs  stretched 
before  him,  just  reaching  the  ground.  "  Envy  me,"  he 
went  on,  smiling ;  "  I  don't  have  to  have  a  second  girl, 
or  a  first  one,  either." 

"What  do  you  do?"  asked  Lydia,  not  waiting,  how- 
ever, for  an  answer,  but  continuing  her  relieved  outpour- 
ing of  her  own  perplexities.  "  It's  perfectly  desperate 
at  home.  I  haven't  had  a  minute's  peace.  This  afternoon 
I  just  got  wild,  and  said  I  would  get  away  from  it  for 
a  minute,  and  just  ran  away.  Father's  nice  about  it,  but 
he  does  look  something  fierce  when  he  comes  home  and 
finds  another  one  left.  He  says  that  Mother  doesn't  have 
to  change  more  than  two  or  three  times  a  year ! "  She 
presented  this  as  the  superlative  of  stability. 

Rankin  laughed  again.  Lydia  felt  more  and  more  at 
her  ease.  He  was  evidently  thinking  of  her  pretty  looks 
and  ways  rather  than  of  what  she  was  saying,  and,  like 
all  of  her  sisterhood,  this  was  treatment  which  she  thor- 
oughly understood.  For  the  moment  she  forgot  that  he 
was  the  man  who  had  startled  and  almost  shocked  her  by 
his  unabashed  presentation,  in  a  conversation  with  a  young 
lady,  of  ideas  and  convictions.  She  leaned  back  in  her 
chair  and  put  on  some  of  the  gracefully  imperious  airs  of 
regnant  American  young-ladyhood.  "  You  must  show  me 
all  about  how  you  live,  and  everything,"  she  commanded 
prettily.  "  I've  been  so  curious  about  it  —  and  now  here 
I  am." 

She  was  enchantingly  unconscious  of  the  possibility  of 
her  having  seemed  to  seek  him  out.  "  What  a  perfectly 
beautiful  piece  of  wood  you  have  in  that  chair-back." 
She  laid  her  ungloved,  rosy  finger-tips  on  a  dark  piece 
of  oak.  "  And  so  this  is  where  you  work  ?  " 

"  I  work  everywhere,"  he  told  her.  "  I  do  all  that's 
done,  you  see." 

"  You  must  have  to  walk  quite  a  ways  to  get  your 
meals,  don't  you  ? "  Lydia  turned  her  white  neck  to 
glance  inside  the  house. 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  6£ 

Rankin's  mouth  twitched  humorously.  "  You'll  never 
understand  me,"  he  said  lightly.  "  I  get  my  meals  myself, 
here." 

Lydia  turned  on  him  sharply.  "You  don't  cook!"  she 
cried  out. 

"  And  wash  dishes,  and  make  my  bed,  and  sweep  my 
floor,  and,  once  in  a  great  while,  dust." 

The  romantic  curiosity  died  out  of  the  girl's  eyes  into 
a  shocked  wonder.  She  glanced  at  his  large  brown  hands, 
and  seemed  about  to  speak.  Nothing  came  from  her  lips 
finally,  however,  beyond  the  pregnant  "  Well ! "  which 
seemed  the  only  expression  in  her  vocabulary  for  extreme 
surprise.  Rankin  threw  back  his  head,  snowing  a  tri- 
angle of  very  white  throat  above  his  loose  collar,  and 
laughed  aloud.  The  sound  of  his  mirth  was  so  infectious 
that  Lydia  laughed  with  him,  though  half  uneasily. 

"  It's  so  funny,"  he  explained,  "  to  see  the  picture  of 
myself  I  gather  from  your  shocked  and  candid  eyes.  I'm 
so  used  to  my  queer  ideas  nowadays  that  I  forget  that 
what  seems  perfectly  natural  to  me  still  seems  perfectly 
crazy  to  others." 

"  Well,  not  crazy"  Lydia  proffered  this  negation  in 
so  halting  an  accent  that  Rankin  burst  into  another 
peal  of  laughter.  "  But  it  must  be  horrid  for  you  to  wash 
dishes  and  cook ! "  protested  Lydia,  feeling  resentful  that 
her  inculcated  horror  of  a  man's  "  lowering  himself  "  to 
woman's  work  should  be  taken  with  so  little  seriousness. 
She  tried  to  rearrange  a  mental  picture  which  the  other 
was  continually  destroying.  "  But  I  suppose  it's  very 
picturesque.  You  cook  over  an  open  fire,  I  imagine." 

There  was  a  humorous  glint  in  his  eye,  "  I  cook  over  the 
best  brand  of  oil-stove  that  money  can  buy,"  he  told  her, 
relentlessly,  watching  her  wince  from  the  sordid  image. 
"  I  have  all  the  conveniences  I  can  think  of.  All  I'm 
trying  to  do  is  to  get  myself  fed  with  the  least  expendi- 
ture of  gray  matter  and  time  on  my  part,  and  as  things 
are  now  arranged  in  this  particular  corner  of  the  country 
I  find  I  can  do  it  best  this  way.  It's  more  work  trying  to 


66  The  Squirrel-Cage 

persuade  somebody  who  doesn't  want  to  wait  on  me  than 
to  jump  up  and  do  it  myself.  Also,  having  brains,  I  can 
certainly  cook  like  a  house  afire." 

At  this,  Lydia  was  overcome  by  that  openness  to  con- 
viction from  unexpected  sources  which  gave  her  mother 
one  of  her  great  anxieties  for  her.  "  Well,  honestly,  do 
you  know,"  she  said  unexpectedly,  "there  is  a  lot  in  that. 
I've  thought  ever  so  many  times  in  the  last  two  weeks  that 
if  Father  would  let  me  wait  on  the  table,  for  instance,  I 
could  get  on  ever  so  much  easier." 

"  And  I'll  just  warrant,"  the  man  went  on,  "  that  I've 
had  more  time  to  myself  lately  than  you  have,  for  all  I've 
my  living  to  earn  as  well  as  the  housework." 

"  My  goodness ! "  cried  Lydia,  repudiating  the  compari- 
son. "  That  needn't  be  saying  much  for  you,  for  I  haven't 
had  a  minute  —  not  even  to  sit  with  Mother  as  much  as  I 
ought." 

"  What  did  you  have  to  do  that  kept  you  from  that  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you're  no  housekeeper,  that's  evident,  or  you 
wouldn't  ask.  A  man  never  has  any  idea  about  the 
amount  of  work  there  is  to  do  in  a  house.  Why,  set  the 
table,  and  sweep  the  parlors,  and  change  the  flower  vases, 
and  dust,  and  pick  up,  and  dust  —  I  don't  know  what 
makes  things  get  so  dusty.  We've  got  an  awfully  big 
house,  you  know,  and  of  course  I  want  to  keep  everything 
as  nice  as  if  Mother  were  up.  Everybody  expects  me  to 
do  that!" 

"  I  had  a  great-aunt,"  began  Rankin  with  willful  irrele- 
vancy, "  a  very  wonderful  old  woman  who  taught  me  most 
of  what  I  value.  She  was  considered  cracked,  so  maybe 
that's  why  I  am  a  freak,  and  she  was  as  wise  as  wise! 
And  she  had  stories  that  fitted  every  occasion.  One  that 
she  used  to  tell  was  about  a  farmer  cousin  of  hers,  who 
had  a  team  of  spirited  young  horses  that  he  was  breaking. 
Everybody  warned  him  that  if  they  ever  ran  away  they'd 
be  spoiled  for  life,  and  he  got  carefuller  and  carefuller 
of  them.  One  day  he  and  his  father  were  haying  beside 
a  river,  and  the  father,  who  couldn't  swim  a  stroke,  fell 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  67 

in.  The  horses  were  frightened  by  the  splash  and  began 
to  prance,  and  the  son  ran  to  their  heads,  beside  himself 
with  fear.  The  old  man  came  to  the  top  and  screamed, 
*  Help !  help ! '  and  the  son  answered,  fairly  jumping  up  and 
down  in  his  anguish  of  mind  over  his  poor  old  father's 
fate,  '  Oh,  help,  somebody !  Somebody  come  and  help !  / 
can't  leave  my  horses ! ' ' 

He  stopped.  Lydia  slid  helplessly  into  the  naive  ques- 
tion, "Well,  did  his  father  drown?"  before  the  meaning 
of  the  little  parable  struck  her.  She  began  to  laugh,  with 
her  gay,  sweet  inability  to  resent  a  joke  made  at  her  own 
expense.  "  Don't  you  think  you  are  a  good  hand  at  ser- 
mon-making !  "  she  mocked  him.  "  It's  all  very  well  to 
preach,  but  just  you  tell  me  what  you  would  have  done  in 
my  place." 

"  I  should  have  left  those  big  rooms,  filled  with  things 
to  dust,  and  let  the  dust  lie  on  them  —  even  such  an  awful 
thing  as  that!" 

Lydia  considered  this  with  honest  surprise.  "  Why,  do 
you  know,  it  never  occurred  to  me  I  could  do  that ! " 

Rankin  nodded.  "  It's  a  common  hallucination,"  he  ex- 
plained. "  I've  had  it.  I  have  to  struggle  against  it 
still." 

"Hallucination?" 

"  The  notion  that  you  belong  to  the  things  that  belong 
to  you." 

Lydia  looked  at  him  sidewise  out  of  her  clear  dark  eyes. 
She  was  beginning  to  feel  more  at  home  in  his  odd  reper- 
tory of  ideas.  "  I  wonder,"  she  mused,  "  if  that's  why  I 
always  feel  so  much  freer  and  happier  in  old  clothes  — 
that  I  don't  forget  that  they're  for  me  and  I'm  not 
for  them.  But  really,  you  know,  dressmakers  and 
mothers  and  folks  get  you  to  thinking  that  you  are  for 
clothes  —  you're  made  to  show  them  off."  Rankin 
vouchsafed  no  opinion  as  to  this  problem  of  young-lady- 
hood. "  Here's  your  sister's  rain,"  he  said  instead, 
pointing  across  the  clearing,  where  against  the  dark  tree- 
trunks  fine,  clear  lines  slanted  down  to  the  dry  grass. 


68  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Lydia  rose  in  some  agitation.  "  Why,  I  didn't  really 
think  it  would  rain!  I  thought  it  was  just  Marietta's 
— "  She  glanced  down  in  dismay  at  her  thin  low  shoes  and 
the  amber-colored  silk  of  her  ruffled  skirt. 

Rankin  stood  up  eagerly.  "  Ah,  I've  a  chance  to  do  you 
a  service.  Just  step  in,  won't  you,  a  moment  and  let  me 
skirmish  around  and  see  what  a  bachelor's  establishment 
can  offer  to  a  beautiful  young  lady  who  mustn't  get  wet." 

Lydia  moved  into  the  wide,  low  room,  saying  depre- 
catingly,  "  It  wouldn't  hurt  me  to  get  wet,  you  know.  But 
this  dress  just  came  from  Paris,  and  I  haven't  had  a  chance 
to  show  it  to  anybody  yet." 

Rankin  laughed,  hastening  to  draw  up  a  chair  before  the 
hearth,  where  a  few  embers  still  glowed,  their  presence 
explained  by  the  autumnal  chill  which  now  struck  sharply 
across  the  room  from  the  open  door  as  the  rain  began  to 
patter  on  the  roof.  The  girl  looked  about  her  in  silence, 
apparently  with  surprise. 

"Well,  how  do  you  like  it?"  asked  the  master  of  the 
house,  throwing  some  dry  twigs  on  the  fire  so  that  the 
flame,  leaping  up,  lighted  the  corners,  already  dusky  with 
the  approach  of  evening.  "  It's  not  very  tidy,  is  it  ?  "  He 
began  rummaging  in  a  recess  in  the  wall,  tumbling  out  coats 
and  shoes  and  hats  in  his  haste.  Finally,  "  There ! "  he 
cried  in  triumph,  shaking  out  a  rain-coat,  "  That  will  keep 
your  pretty  French  finery  dry." 

He  turned  back  to  the  girl,  who  was  sitting  very  straight 
in  her  chair,  peering  about  her  with  wide  eyes  and  a  strange 
expression  on  her  face.  "  Why,  what's  the  matter  ? "  he 
asked. 

Lydia  stood  up,  with  a  quick  indrawn  breath.  "  I  don't 
know,"  she  said,  "  what  it  is.  It  seems  as  though  I'd  been 
here  before.  It  looks  so  familiar  to  me  —  so  good — " 
She  went  closer  to  where,  still  holding  out  the  rain-coat,  he 
stood  on  the  other  side  of  a  table  strewn  with  papers. 
She  leaned  on  this,  fingering  a  pen  and  looking  at  him  with 
a  shy  eagerness.  She  was  struggling,  as  so  often,  with  an 
indefinable  feeling  which  she  had  no  words  to  express. 


"YOU    SAY    BKAUT1FUL   THINGS  !"    HE    REPLIED    QUIETLY.     "  MY  ROUGH 
QUARTERS    ARE    GLORIFIED    FOR    ME" 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  69 

"  Don't  you  know,"  she  went  on,  "  every  once  in  a  while 
you  see  somebody  —  an  old  man  or  woman,  perhaps,  on  the 
street  cars,  in  the  street  —  and  somehow  the  face  goes  home 
to  you.  It  seems  as  though  you'd  been  waiting  to  see  that 
face  again.  Well,  it's  just  so  with  this  room.  It  has  a 
face.  I  like  it  very — "  She  broke  off,  helplessly  inar- 
ticulate before  the  confusion  of  her  thoughts,  and  looked 
timidly  at  the  man.  She  was  used  to  kindly,  amused 
laughter  when  she  tried,  stumblingly,  to  phrase  some  of 
the  quickly  varying  impressions  which  made  her  life  so 
full  of  invisible  incidents. 

But  Rankin  did  not  laugh,  even  kindly.  His  clear  eyes 
were  more  than  serious.  They  seemed  to  show  him  moved 
to  an  answering  emotion.  "  You  say  beautiful  things !  "  he 
replied  quietly.  "  My  rough  quarters  are  glorified  for  me. 
I've  been  fond  of  them  before  —  they're  the  background  to 
a  good  many  inward  struggles  and  a  considerable  amount 
of  inward  peace,  but  now — "  He  looked  about  him  with 
new  eyes,  noting  the  dull  gleam  of  gold  with  which  the 
chestnut  ceiling  answered  the  searching  flicker  of  the  fire, 
the  brighter  sparkles  which  were  struck  out  from  the  gilded 
lettering  on  the  books  which  lined  the  walls,  and  the  dia- 
mond-like flashes  from  the  polished  steel  of  the  tools  on 
the  work-bench  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.  There  was  a 
pause  in  which  the  silence  within  the  house  brought  out 
the  different  themes  composing  the  rich  harmony  of  the 
rain,  the  steady,  resonant  downpour  on  the  roof,  the  sweet 
whispers  of  the  dried  grass  under  the  torrent,  the  muted 
thuddings  of  the  big  drops  on  the  beaten  earth  of  the 
veranda  floor,  and  the  hurried  liquid  overflow  of  the  eaves. 
It  was  still  light  enough  to  see  the  fine  color  of  the  leather 
that  covered  the  armchairs,  and  the  glossy  black  of  a 
piano,  heaped  with  a  litter  of  music.  Near  the  piano,  lean- 
ing against  the  wall,  a  violoncello  curved  its  brown  crook- 
neck  over  the  shapeless  bag  that  sheltered  it. 

Lydia  pointed  to  it.  "  You're  musical !  "  she  said,  as  if 
she  had  made  an  important  discovery. 

Rankin   roused  himself,   followed  the   direction  of  her 


7O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

gaze,  and  shook  his  head.  "  No ;  I  can't  play  a  note,"  he 
said  cheerfully,  laying  the  rain-coat  down  and  going  to 
look  over  the  pile  of  overshoes  in  a  box ;  "  but  I  like  it. 
My  queer  old  great-aunt  left  me  that  'cello.  It  had  be- 
longed to  her  grandfather.  I  believe  being  so  old  makes 
it  quite  valuable.  The  piano  belongs  to  an  old  German 
friend  of  mine  who  has  seen  better  days  and  has  now  no 
place  to  keep  it.  Two  or  three  times  a  week  he  comes 
out  here  with  an  old  crony  who  plays  the  'cello,  and  they 
make  music  till  they  get  to  crying  on  each  other's  necks." 

"  Do  you  cry,  too  ?  "     Lydia  smiled  at  the  picture. 

Rankin  came  back  to  the  fire  with  a  pair  of  rubbers 
in  his  hand.  "  No ;  I'm  an  American.  I  only  blow  my  nose 
hard,"  he  said  gravely. 

"  Well,  it  must  be  lovely ! "  She  sighed  this  out 
ardently,  sinking  back  in  her  chair.  .  "  I  love  music  so  it 
'most  kills  me,  but  I  don't  get  very  much  of  it.  I  took 
piano  lessons  when  I  was  little,  but  there  were  always  so 
many  other  things  to  do  I  never  got  time  to  practice  as 
much  as  I  wanted  to,  and  so  I  didn't  get  very  far.  Any- 
how, after  I  heard  a  good  orchestra  play,  my  little  tinklings 
were  worse  than  nothing.  I  wish  I  could  hear  more.  But 
perhaps  it's  just  as  well,  Mother  says.  It  always  gets  me  so 
excited.  I'm  sure  I  should  cry,  along  with  the"  Germans." 

"  They  would  like  that,"  observed  her  host,  "  above  every- 
thing." 

"  Father  keeps  talking  about  getting  one  of  those  player- 
pianos,  but  Mother  says  they  are  so  new  you  can't  tell  what 
they  are  going  to  be.  She  says  they  may  get  to  be  too 
common." 

Rankin  looked  at  her  hard.  "  Would  you  like  one  ?  " 
He  asked  this  trivial  question  with  a  singular  emphasis. 

"  Why,  I  haven't  really  thought,"  said  Lydia,  considering 
the  matter. 

The  man  looked  oddly  anxious  for  her  answer. 

Finally,  "  Why,  it  depends  on  how  much  music  you  can 
make  with  them.  If  they  are  really  good,  I  should  want 
one,  of  course." 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  71 

Rankin  smiled,  drew  a  long  breath,  and  fell  sober  again 
as  if  at  a  sudden  thought. 

"  I  don't  see  any  oil-stove,"  said  the  girl,  skeptically,  look- 
ing about  her. 

"  Oh,  I  have  a  regular  kitchen.  It's  there,"  he  nodded 
back  of  him ;  "  and  two  rooms  beside  for  me  and  for  Dr. 
Melton  or  my  Germans,  or  some  of  my  other  freak  friends 
when  they  stay  too  long  and  miss  the  last  trolley  in  to  town. 
Oh,  I  have  lots  of  room." 

"It  looks  really  rather  nice,  now  I'm  here  and  all," 
Lydia  vaguely  approved ;  "  though  I  don't  see  why  you 
couldn't  have  gone  on  more  like  other  folks  and  just 
changed  some  things  —  not  been  so  awfully  queer !  " 

Rankin  was  kneeling  before  her,  holding  out  a  pair  of 
rubbers.  At  this  remark  he  sat  back  on  his  heels,  and 
began :  "  My  great-aunt  said  that  there  was  a  man  in  her 
town  who  had  such  a  terrible  temper  that  his  wife  was  in 
perfect  terror  of  him,  and  finally  actually  died  of  fear. 
Everybody  was  paralyzed  with  astonishment  when,  two 
or  three  years  after,  one  of  the  nicest  girls  in  town  married 
him.  People  told  her  she  was  crazy,  but  she  just  smiled 
and  said  she  guessed  she  could  get  along  with  him  all  right. 
Everything  went  well  for  a  week  or  two,  and  then  one  day 
he  said  the  tea  was  cold  and  not  fit  for  a  pig  to  drink, 
and  threw  the  cup  on  the  floor.  She  threw  hers  down 
and  broke  it  all  to  smash.  He  stared  and  glared,  and  threw 
his  plate  down.  She  set  her  lips  and  banged  her  own  plate 
on  the  hearth.  He  threw  his  knife  and  fork  through  the 
window.  She  threw  hers  after,  and  added  the  water- 
pitcher  for  good  measure." 

Lydia's  astonishment  at  this  point  was  so  heartfelt  that 
the  racanteur  broke  off,  laughed,  and  ended  hastily,  "  I 
spare  you  the  rest  of  the  dinner-service.  The  upshot  of 
it  was  that  every  dish  in  the  house  was  smashed  and  not 
a  word  spoken.  Then  the  man  called  for  his  carriage  (he 
was  a  rich  man  —  that  sort  usually  is),  drove  to  the  nearest 
china-store,  bought  a  new  set,  better  than  the  old,  took 
it  back,  and  lived  in  peace  and  harmony  with  his  wife  ever 


72  The  Squirrel-Cage 

after.  And  here  is  the  smallest  pair  of  rubbers  I  can  find, 
and  I  shall  have  to  tie  these  on !  " 

Lydia  watched  the  operation  in  silence.  As  he  finished 
it  and  rose  to  his  feet  again,  "  What  was  that  all  about?  " 
she  inquired  simply. 

"  Compromise,"  he  answered.  "  There  are  occasions 
when  it  doesn't  do  any  good." 

"  Does  it  do  such  a  lot  of  good  to  go  off  in  the  woods 
by  yourself  and  do  your  own  cooking  ?  "  asked  Lydia  with 
something  of  her  father's  shrewd  home-thrusting  accent. 
"  What  would  happen  if  everybody  did  that?" 

Rankin  laughed.  "  Everybody'd  have  a  good  time,  for 
one  thing,"  he  answered,  adding,  more  seriously,  "  The 
house  of  Rimmon  may  be  all  right  for  some  people,  but 
my  head  isn't  clear  enough." 

Lydia  looked  frankly  at  a  loss.  She  did  not  belong  to 
the  alert,  quickly  "  bluffing  "  type  of  young  lady.  "  Rim- 
mon ? "  she  asked. 

"He's  in  the  Bible." 

"  That's  a  good  reason  why  I've  never  heard  of  him,"  she 
said  ruefully. 

"  All  I  meant  by  him  was  that  people  who  conform  out- 
wardly to  a  standard  they  don't  really  believe  in,  are  in 
danger  of  getting  most  awfully  mixed  up.  And  certainly 
they  don't  stand  any  chance  of  convincing  anybody  else 
that  there's  anything  the  matter  with  the  standard.  What's 
needed  isn't  to  upset  everything  in  a  heap,  but  to  call  peo- 
ple's attention  to  the  fact  that  things  could  be  a  lot  better 
than  they  are.  And  that's  hard  to  do.  And  who  ever 
called  more  people's  attention  to  that  fact  than  an  imprac- 
tical, unbalanced  nobleman  who  took  to  cobbling  shoes  for 
the  peace  of  his  soul?  There  wasn't  a  particle  of  sense  to 
what  Tolstoi  did,  but — "  He  stopped,  hesitating  in  an 
uncertainty  that  Lydia  understood  with  a  touching  humility. 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  explain  who  Tolstoi  is.  I've  heard  of 
him." 

"  Well,  you  mustn't  imagine  I'm  anything  like  Tolstoi !  " 
cried  the  young  man,  laughing  aloud  at  the  idea,  "  for  I 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  73 

don't  take  a  bit  of  stock  in  his  deification  of  working  with 
your  muscles.  That  was  an  exaggeration  he  fell  into  in 
his  old  age  because  he'd  been  denied  his  fair  share  of 
manual  work  when  he  was  young.  If  he'd  had  to  split 
kindlings  and  tote  ashes  and  hoe  corn  when  he  was  a  boy, 
I  bet  he  wouldn't  have  thought  there  was  anything  so  sanc- 
tifying about  callouses  on  your  hands ! " 

"  Oh,  dear !  You're  awfully  confusing  to  me,"  com- 
plained Lydia.  "  You  always  seem  to  be  making  fun  of 
something  I  thought  just  the  minute  before  you  believed 
in." 

Rankin  looked  intensely  serious.  "  There  isn't  an  im- 
pression I'd  be  sorrier  to  give  you,"  he  said  earnestly. 
"  Perhaps  the  trouble  is  that  you  don't  as  yet  know  much 
about  the  life  I've  got  out  of." 

"  I've  lived  in  Endbury  all  my  life,"  protested  Lydia. 

"  There  may  still  be  something  for  you  to  learn  about 
the  lives  of  its  men,"  suggested  her  companion. 

"  If  you  think  it's  so  wrong,  why  don't  you  reform  it  ?  " 
Lydia  launched  this  challenge  suddenly  at  him  with  the 
directness  characteristic  of  her  nation. 

"  I  have  to  begin  with  reforming  myself,"  he  said,  "  and 
that's  job  enough  to  last  me  a  long  while.  I  have  to  learn 
not  to  care  about  being  considered  a  failure  by  all  the  men 
of  my  own  age  who  are  passing  me  by ;  and  I  don't  mind 
confessing  to  you  that  that  is  not  always  easy  —  though 
you  mustn't  tell  Dr.  Melton  I'm  so  weak.  I  have  to  train 
myself  to  see  that  they  are  not  really  getting  up  so  fast, 
but  only  scrambling  fast  over  slipping,  sliding  stones;  and 
then  I  have  to  try  to  find  some  firm  ground  where  I  can 
make  a  path  of  my  own,  up  which  I  can  plod  in  my  own 
way." 

The  tone  of  the  young  people,  as  they  talked  with  their 
innocent  grandiloquence  of  these  high  matters,  might  have 
been  taken  for  that  of  a  couple  deep  in  some  intimate  dis- 
cussion, so  honestly  serious  and  moved  was  it.  There  was 
a  silence  now,  also  like  the  pause  in  a  profoundly  personal 
talk,  in  which  they  looked  long  into  each  other's  eyes. 


74  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  clock  struck  five.  Lydia  sprang  to  her  feet.  "  Oh, 
I  must  hurry  on!  I  told  Marietta  to  telephone  home  that 
I'd  be  there  at  six." 

She  still  preserved  her  charming  unconsciousness  of  the 
unconventionality  of  her  situation.  A  European  girl, 
brought  up  in  the  strictest  ignorance  of  the  world,  would 
still  have  had  intuitions  to  make  her  either  painfully  em- 
barrassed or  secretly  delighted  with  this  impromptu  visit  to 
a  young  bachelor ;  but  Lydia,  who  had  been  allowed  to  read 
"  everything  "  and  the  only  compromise  to  whose  youth  had 
been  fitful  attempts  of  the  family  to  remember  "  not  to  talk 
too  much  about  things  before  Lydia,"  was  clad  in  that 
unearthly  innocence  which  the  advancing  tide  of  sophistica- 
tion has  still  left  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States  —  that 
sweet,  proud,  pathetic  conviction  of  the  American  girl  that 
evil  is  not  a  vital  force  in  any  world  that  she  knows.  The 
young  man  before  her  smiled  at  her  in  as  artless  an  un- 
consciousness as  her  own.  They  might  have  been  a  pair 
of  children. 

"  You've  plenty  of  time,"  he  assured  her.  "  Though  I 
live  so  far  out  of  the  world,  the  Garfield  Avenue  trolley 
line  is  only  five  minutes'  walk  away.  Oh,  I'm  prosaic  and 
commonplace,  with  my  oil-stove  and  trolley  cars.  There's 
nothing  of  the  romantic  reactionary  about  me,  I'm  afraid." 
He  wrapped  the  rain-coat  about  her  and  took  an  um- 
brella. 

"  Don't  you  lock  up  your  house  when  you  go  away  ?  " 
asked  Lydia. 

"  The  poor  man  laughs  in  the  presence  of  thieves,"  quoted 
Rankin. 

They  stood  on  the  veranda  now,  looking  out  into  the 
blue  twilight.  The  rain  drummed  noisily  on  the  roof  and 
the  soft  swish  of  its  descent  into  the  grass  rose  to  a  clear, 
sibilant  note.  The  wind  had  died  down  completely,  and 
the  raindrops  fell  in  long,  straight  lines  like  an  opaque, 
glistening  wall,  which  shut  them  off  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Back  of  them,  the  fire  lighted  up  the  empty  chair 
that  Lydia  had  left.  She  glanced  in,  and,  moved  by  one 


Outside  the  Labyrinth'  75 

of  her  sudden  impulses,  ran  back  for  a  moment  to  cast 
a  rapid  glance  about  the  quiet  room. 

When  she  returned  to  take  Rankin's  arm  as  he  held  the 
open  umbrella,  she  looked  up  at  him  with  shining  eyes. 
"  I  have  made  friends  with  it  —  your  living-room,"  she 
said. 

As  they  made  their  way  along  the  footpath,  she  went  on, 
"  When  I  get  into  the  trolley  car  I  shall  think  I  have 
dreamed  it  —  the  little  house  in  the  clearing  —  so  peaceful, 
so  —  just  look  at  it  now.  It  looks  like  a  little  house  in  a 
child's  fairy-tale."  They  paused  on  the  edge  of  the  clear- 
ing and  looked  back  at  the  pleasant  glow  shimmering 
through  the  windows,  then  plunged  into  the  strip  of  forest 
that  separated  the  clearing  from  the  open  farming  country 
and  the  main  road  to  Endbury. 

Neither  of  them  spoke  during  this  walk.  The  rain  pat- 
tered swiftly,  varying  its  monotonous  refrain  as  it  struck 
the  umbrella,  the  leaves,  the  little  brook  that  ran  beside 
them,  or  the  stony  path.  Lydia  clung  to  Rankin's  arm, 
peering  about  her  into  the  dim  caves  of  twilight  with  a  happy, 
secure  excitement.  After  her  confinement  to  the  house 
for  the  last  fortnight,  merely  to  be  out  of  doors  was  an 
intoxication  for  her,  and  ever  since  she  had  left  her  sister 
and  begun  her  wanderings  in  the  painted  woods  she  had 
felt  the  heroine  of  an  impalpable  adventure.  The  silent 
flight  through  the  dripping  trees  was  a  fitting  end.  Except 
for  breaking  in  upon  the  music  of  the  rain,  she  would  have 
liked  to  sing  aloud. 

She  thought,  flittingly,  how  Marietta  would  laugh  at 
her  manufacturing  anything  romantic  out  of  the  com- 
monplace facts  of  the  insignificant  episode,  but  even  as  she 
turned  away  from  her  sister's  imagined  mocking  smile,  she 
felt  an  odd  certainty  that  to  Rankin  there  was  also  a 
glamour  about  their  doings.  It  was  as  though  the  occa- 
sional contact  of  their  bodies  as  they  moved  along  the  nar- 
row path  were  a  wordless  communication. 

He  said  nothing,  but  as  they  emerged  upon  the  long  tree- 
less road,  stretching  away  over  the  flat  country  to  where 


76  The  Squirrel-Cage 

the  lights  of  Endbury  glowed  tremulously  through  the  rain, 
he  looked  at  his  companion  with  a  quick  intensity,  as  though 
it  were  the  first  time  he  had  really  seen  her. 

It  was  that  man's  look  which  makes  a  woman's  heart  beat 
faster,  even  if  she  is  as  inexperienced  as  Lydia.  She  was 
already  tingling  with  an  undefined  emotion,  and  the  shock 
of  their  meeting  eyes  made  her  face  glow.  It  shone  through 
the  half-light  as  though  a  lamp  had  been  lighted  within. 

They  stood  silently  waiting  for  the  car  which  flashed  a 
headlight  toward  them  far  down  the  track.  As  it  drew 
near,  bounding  over  the  rails,  humming  like  a  great  insect, 
and  bringing  visibly  nearer  and  nearer  the  end  of  their  time 
together,  Lydia  was  aware  that  Rankin  was  in  the  grasp 
of  an  emotion  that  threatened  to  become  articulate.  The 
steady  advance  of  the  car  was  forcing  him  to  a  speech 
against  which  he  struggled  in  vain.  Lydia  began  to  quiver. 
She  felt  an  expectancy  of  something  lovely,  moving,  new 
to  her,  which  grew  tenser  and  tenser,  as  though  her  nerves 
were  the  strings  of  an  instrument  being  pulled  into  tune 
for  a  melody.  Standing  there  in  the  cold,  rainy  twilight, 
she  had  a  moment  of  the  exultation  she  had  thought  was 
to  be  so  common  in  her  Endbury  career.  She  felt  warmed 
through  with  the  consciousness  of  being  lovely,  admired, 
secure,  supremely  fortunate,  just  as  she  had  thought  she 
would  feel;  but  she  had  not  been  able  to  imagine  the  ex- 
traordinary happiness  that  this,  or  some  unrecognized  ele- 
ment of  the  moment,  gave  to  her. 

The  car  was  almost  upon  them ;  the  blinding  glare  of  the 
headlight  showed  their  faces  with  startling  suddenness. 
She  saw  in  Rankin's  eyes  a  tenderness  that  went  to  her 
heart.  She  leaned  to  him  from  the  steps  of  the  car  to 
which  he  swung  her  —  she  leaned  to  him  with  a  sweet, 
unconscious  eagerness.  In  the  instant  before  the  car  moved 
forward,  as  he  stood  gazing  up  at  her,  he  spoke  at  last. 

The  words  hummed  meaningless  in  Lydia's  ears,  and  it 
was  not  until  some  time  after,  in  the  garish  white  brilliance 
of  the  car,  that  she  convinced  herself  that  she  had  heard 
aright  Even  then,  though  she  still  saw  his  face  raised  to 


Outside  the  Labyrinth  77 

hers,  the  raindrops  glistening  on  his  hair  and  beard,  even 
though  she  still  heard  the  fervor  of  his  voice,  she  remained 
incredulous  before  the  enigma  of  his  totally  unexpected 
words.  He  had  said,  with  a  solemn  note  of  pity  in  his 
voice :  "  Ah,  my  poor  child,  I  am  so  horribly,  horribly  sorrj 
for  youl" 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  COMING  EVENT 

JUDGE  EMERY  looked  tired  and  old  as  he  sat  down  heavily 
at  his  dinner-table  opposite  his  pretty  daughter.  The  dis- 
comfort and  irregularity  of  the  household  for  the  last  two 
weeks  had  worn  on  the  nerves  of  a  very  busy  man  who 
needed  all  of  his  strength  for  his  work.  It  seemed  an  evil 
fate  of  his,  he  reflected  as  he  took  his  napkin  out  of  its 
ring,  that  whenever  he  was  particularly  hard-pressed  in 
his  profession,  domestic  turmoil  was  sure  to  set  in.  He 
was  now  presiding  over  a  suit  between  the  city  and  the 
electric  railway  company,  involving  many  intricate  details 
of  electrical  engineering  and  accounting  methods.  Until 
that  suit  was  settled,  he  felt  that  it  was  unreasonable  for 
his  family  to  expect  him  to  give  time  or  attention  to  any- 
thing else. 

In  the  absence  of  other  vital  interests  in  his  life,  he  had 
come  to  focus  all  his  faculties  on  his  profession.  On  the 
adroitness  of  clever  attorneys  he  expended  the  capacity  for 
admiration  which,  as  his  life  was  arranged,  found  no  other 
outlet;  and,  belonging  to  the  generation  before  golf  and 
bridge  and  tennis  had  brought  games  within  the  range  of 
serious-minded  adults,  he  had  the  same  intent  curiosity  about 
the  outcome  of  a  legal  contest  that  another  man  might  have 
felt  in  the  outcome  of  a  Newport  tournament.  His  wife 
had  long  ago  learned,  so  she  said,  that  any  attempt  to  catch 
his  mental  eye  while  an  interesting  trial  was  in  progress 
was  as  unavailing  as  to  try  to  call  a  street  gamin  away 
from  a  knot-hole  in  a  fence  around  a  baseball  field. 

She  knew  him  and  all  his  capabilities  very  well,  his  wife 
told  herself,  and  so  used  was  she  to  the  crystallized  form 


The  Shadow  of  the  Coming  Event        79 

in  which  she  had  for  so  many  years  beheld  him,  that  she 
dismissed,  as  typically  chimerical  "  notions,"  the  specula- 
tions of  her  doctor  —  also  a  life-long  friend  of  her  hus- 
band's—  as  to  what  Judge  Emery  might  have  become  if  — 
the  doctor  spoke  in  his  usual  highly  figurative  and  fantastic 
jargon — "he  had  not  had  to  hurry  so  with  that  wheel  in 
his  cage."  "  When  I  first  knew  Nat  Emery,"  he  once  said, 
"  he  was  sitting  up  till  all  hours  reading  Les  Miserables, 
and  would  knock  you  down  if  you  didn't  bow  your  head 
at  the  mention  of  Thackeray.  He  might  have  liked  music, 
too.  An  American  isn't  inherently  incapable  of  that,  I 
suppose."  At  which  he  had  turned  on  sixteen-year-old 
Lydia  with,  "  Which  would  you  rather  have,  Lyddy ;  a 
husband  with  a  taste  for  Beethoven  or  one  that'd  make  you 
five  thousand  a  year  ?  "  Lydia  had  shudderingly  made  the 
answer  of  sixteen  years,  that  she  never  intended  to  have  a 
husband  of  any  kind  whatever,  and  Mrs.  Emery  had  rebuked 
the  doctor  later  for  "  putting  ideas  in  girls'  heads."  It  was 
an  objection  at  which  he  had  laughed  long  and  loud. 

Mrs.  Emery  liked  her  doctor  in  spite  of  not  understand- 
ing him ;  but  she  loved  her  husband  because  she  knew  him 
through  and  through.  In  his  turn,  Judge  Emery  bestowed 
on  his  wife  an  esteem  the  warmth  of  which  was  not  tem- 
pered by  his  occasional  amusement  at  her  —  an  amusement 
which  Mrs.  Emery  was  far  from  suspecting.  He  did 
heartily  and  unreservedly  admire  her  competence;  though 
he  never  did  justice  to  her  single-handed  battle  against  the 
forces  of  ignorance  and  irresponsibility  in  the  kitchen  until 
an  illness  of  hers  showed  that  the  combat  must  be  continu- 
ous, though  his  wisdom  in  selecting  an  ambitious  wife  had 
shielded  him,  as  a  rule,  from  the  uproar  of  the  engagement. 

This  evening,  as  he  looked  across  the  white  table-cloth 
at  his  daughter,  he  had  a  sudden  qualm  of  doubt,  not 
unusual  in  parents,  as  to  the  capacity  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration to  carry  on  the  work  begun  by  the  older.  Of 
course,  he  reassured  himself,  this  had  scarcely  been  a  fair 
trial.  The  child  had  been  plunged  into  the  business  the 
day  after  her  return,  with  the  added  complication  of  her 


80  The  Squirrel-Cage 

mother's  illness;  but,  even  making  all  allowances,  he  had 
been  dismayed  by  the  thorough-going  domestic  anarchy  that 
had  ensued.  He  was  partly  aware  that  what  alarmed  him 
most  was  Lydia's  lack  of  zest  in  the  battle,  an  unwillingness 
to  recognize  its  inevitability  and  face  it;  a  strange,  appar- 
ently willful,  blindness  to  the  value  of  victory.  Her  father 
was  disturbed  by  this  failure  to  acquiesce  in  the  normal, 
usual  standard  of  values.  He  recalled  with  apprehension 
the  revolutionary  sayings  and  doings  of  his  second  son, 
which  had  been  the  more  disconcerting  because  they  flowed 
from  the  young  reactionary  in  such  a  gay  flood  of  high 
spirits.  Harry  had  no  more  shared  the  reverent  attitude 
of  his  family  toward  household  aesthetics  than  toward  social 
values.  A  house  was  a  place  to  keep  the  weather  from  you, 
he  had  said  laughingly.  If  you  could  have  it  pretty  and 
well-ordered  without  too  much  bother,  well  and  good ;  but 
might  the  Lord  protect  him  from  everlastingly  making 
omelets  to  look  at  and  not  to  eat. 

Lydia,  to  be  sure,  had  ventured  no  irreverent  jokes,  and, 
so  far  as  her  father  could  see,  had  never  conceived  them; 
but  a  few  days  before  she  had  suggested  seriously,  "  Why 
can't  we  shut  up  all  of  the  house  we  don't  really  use,  and 
not  have  to  take  care  of  those  big  parlors  and  the  library 
when  you  and  I  are  always  in  the  dining-room  or  upstairs 
with  Mother,  now  she's  sick  ?  " 

Judge  Emery  had  thought  of  the  grade  of  society  which 
keeps  its  "  best  room  "  darkened  and  closed,  of  the  strug- 
gles with  which  his  wife  had  dragged  the  family  up  out 
of  that  grade,  and  was  appalled  at  Lydia's  unconscious 
reversion  to  type.  "  Your  mother  would  feel  dreadfully 
to  have  you  do  that ;  you  know  she  thinks  it  very  bad  form 
—  very  green." 

Lydia  had  not  insisted;  it  ran  counter  to  every  instinct 
in  Lydia  to  insist  on  anything.  She  had  succumbed  at  the 
first  of  his  shocked  tones  of  surprise;  but  the  suggestion 
had  shown  him  a  glimpse  of  workings  in  her  mind  which 
made  him  uneasy. 

However,  to-night  there  were  several  cheering  circum- 


The  Shadow  of  the  Coming  Event        81 

stances.  The  doctor  had  left  word  that,  in  all  probability, 
Mrs.  Emery  would  be  quite  herself  in  ten  days  —  a  shorter 
time  than  he  had  feared.  Lydia  was  really  charming  in 
a  rose-colored  dress  that  matched  the  dewy  flush  in  her 
cheeks;  the  roast  looked  cooked  as  he  liked  it,  and  he  had 
heard  some  warm  words  that  day  about  the  brilliancy  of 
young  Paul  Hollister's  prospects.  He  took  a  drink  of  ice- 
water,  tucked  his  napkin  in  the  top  of  his  vest  —  a  com- 
promise allowed  him  by  his  wife  at  family  dinners,  and 
smiled  at  his  daughter.  "  Your  mother  tells  me  that  you've 
had  a  letter  from  Paul,  saying  that  he'll  be  back  shortly," 
he  said  with  a  jocosely  significant  emphasis.  "  I  suppose 
we  shall  hardly  be  able  to  get  a  glimpse  of  you  after  he's 
in  town  again." 

At  this  point,  beginning  to  carve  the  roast,  he  had  a 
sinking  premonition  that  it  was  going  to  be  very  tough, 
and  though  he  heroically  resisted  the  ejaculation  of  embit- 
tered protest  that  rose  to  his  lips,  this  magnanimity  cost 
him  so  dear  that  he  did  not  think  of  Lydia  again  till  after 
he  had  served  her  automatically,  dashing  the  mashed  potato 
on  her  plate  with  the  gesture  of  an  angry  mason  slapping 
down  a  trowelful  of  mortar.  It  seemed  to  him  at  the 
moment  that  the  past  three  weeks  had  been  one  succession 
of  tough  roasts.  He  took  another  drink  of  ice-water  before 
he  gloomily  began  on  his  first  mouthful.  It  was  worse  than 
he  feared,  and  he  was  in  no  mood  to  be  either  very  imagi- 
native or  very  indulgent  to  a  girl's  whims  when  Lydia  said, 
suddenly  and  stiffly,  "  I  wish  you  wouldn't  speak  so  about 
Paul.  I  don't  know  what  makes  everybody  tease  me  so 
about  him ! " 

Her  father  was  chewing  grimly.  "  I  don't  know  why 
they  shouldn't,  I'm  sure,"  he  said.  "Young  folks  can't 
expect  everybody  to  keep  their  eyes  shut  and  draw  no 
conclusions.  Of  course  I  understand  Paul's  not  saying 
anything  definite  till  now,  on  account  of  your  being  so 
young." 

Something  of  Marietta's  unsparing  presentation  of  facts 
was  inherited  from  her  father,  though,  under  his  wife's 


82  The  Squirrel-Cage 

tutelage,  he  usually  spared  Lydia  when  he  thought  of  it 
At  this  time  he  was  speaking  almost  absently,  his  attention 
divided  between  the  exceptions  to  his  rulings  taken  by  the 
corporation  counsel  and  the  quality  of  his  dinner;  both 
disturbing  to  his  quiet.  He  finally  gave  up  the  attempt 
at  mastication  and  swallowed  the  morsel  bodily,  with  a 
visible  gulp.  As  he  felt  the  consequent  dull  lump  of  dis- 
comfort, he  allowed  himself  his  first  articulate  protest. 
"Good  Heavens!  What  meat!" 

Lydia  had  grown  quite  pale.  She  pushed  back  her  plate 
and  looked  at  her  father  with  horrified  eyes.  "  Father ! 
What  a  thing  to  say !  "  she  finally  cried  out.  "  You  make 
me  ashamed  to  look  him  —  to  look  anybody  in  the  face. 
Why,  I  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing!  I  never — " 

Judge  Emery  was  very  fond  of  his  pretty  daughter,  and 
at  this  appeal  from  what  he  felt  to  be  a  very  mild  expres- 
sion of  justified  discontent,  he  melted  at  once.  "  Now, 
never  mind,  Lydia,  it  won't  kill  me.  Only  as  soon  as  your 
mother  gets  about  again,  for  the  Lord's  sake  have  her  take 
you  to  a  butcher  shop  and  learn  to  select  meats." 

Lydia  looked  at  him  blankly.  She  had  the  feeling  that 
her  father  was  so  remote  from  her  that  she  could  hardly 
see  him.  She  opened  her  lips  to  speak,  but  at  that  moment 
the  maid  —  the  latest  acquisition  from  the  employment 
agency,  a  slatternly  Irish  girl  —  went  through  the  dining- 
room  on  her  way  to  answer  the  door-bell,  and  her  father's 
amused  comment  cut  her  short.  "  Lydia,  you'll  have  your 
guests  thinking  they're  at  a  lunch  counter  if  you  let  that 
girl  go  on  wearing  that  agglomeration  of  hair." 

The  maid  reappeared,  sidling  into  the  room,  half  carry- 
ing, half  dragging  a  narrow,  tall  green  pasteboard  box, 
higher  than  herself  but  still  not  long  enough  for  its  con- 
tents, which  protruded  in  leafy  confusion  from  one  end. 
"  It's  for  you,"  she  said  bluntly,  depositing  it  beside  Lydia 
and  retreating  into  the  kitchen. 

Lydia  looked  at  it  in  wonder,  turning  to  crimson  con- 
fusion when  her  father  said :  "  From  Paul,  I  suppose. 
Very  nice,  I'm  sure.  Ring  the  bell  for  dessert  before  you 


The  Shadow  of  the  Coming  Event        83 

open  it.  Of  course  you're  in  a  hurry  to  read  the  card." 
He  smiled  with  a  tender  amusement  at  the  girl,  who  met 
his  eyes  with  a  look  of  fright.  She  opened  the  box,  from 
which  arose  a  column  of  strong,  spicy  odor,  almost  like 
something  visible,  and  naively  read  the  card  aloud :  "  To 
the  little  girl  grown  up  at  last  —  to  the  young  lady  I've 
waited  so  long  to  see." 

She  laid  the  card  down  beside  her  plate  and  kept  her 
eyes  upon  it,  hanging  her  head  in  silence.  Her  father 
began  to  consume  his  dessert  rapidly.  The  cream  in  it  was 
delicious,  and  he  ate  with  appreciation.  To  him,  as  to  many 
middle-aged  Americans,  the  two  vital  parts  of  a  meal  were 
the  meat  and  the  dessert.  The  added  pleasures  or  com- 
forting consolations  of  soup,  salads,  vegetables,  entrees, 
made  dishes,  were  not  for  him.  He  ate  them,  but  with  a 
robust  indifference.  "  Meat's  business,"  he  was  wont  to 
say,  "  and  dessert's  fun.  The  rest  of  one's  victuals  is  so- 
ciety and  art  and  literature  and  such  —  things  to  leave  to 
the  women." 

He  now  stopped  his  consumption  of  his  dessert  and 
recalled  himself  with  an  effort  to  his  daughter's  impalpable 
difficulties.  She  was  murmuring,  "  But,  Father  —  you 
must  be  mistaken —  Why,  nobody  so  much  as  hinted  at 
such  a — " 

*  That's  your  mother's  doings.  She'd  be  furious  now 
if  she  knew  I'd  spoken  right  out.  But  you  don't  want  to 
be  treated  like  a  little  girl  all  your  life,  do  you?"  He 
laughed  at  her  speechless  embarrassment  with  a  kind  ob- 
tuseness  to  the  horror  of  youth  at  seeing  its  shy  fastnesses 
of  reserve  laid  open  to  indifferent  feet.  Divining,  however, 
through  his  affection  for  her,  that  she  was  really  more  than 
pleasantly  startled  by  his  bluntness,  he  began  to  make  every- 
thing smooth  by  saying :  "  There  aren't  many  girls  in  End- 
bury  who  don't  envy  my  little  Lydia,  I  guess.  Paul  is 
considered  — " 

At  this  point  Lydia  rose  hurriedly  and  actually  ran  away 
from  the  sound  of  his  voice.  She  fled  upstairs  so  rapidly 
that  he  heard  the  click  of  her  heel  on  the  top  step  before 


84  The  Squirrel-Cage 

he  could  draw  his  breath.  He  laughed  uneasily,  finished  his 
dessert  in  one  or  two  huge  mouthfuls,  and  followed  her. 
He  was  recalled  by  the  ringing  of  the  telephone  bell,  and 
when  he  went  upstairs  again  he  was  smiling  broadly.  With 
his  lawyer's  caution,  he  waited  a  moment  outside  his  wife's 
room,  where  he  heard  Lydia's  voice,  to  see  if  her  mother 
had  hit  upon  some  happy  inspiration  to  quiet  the  girl's 
exaggerated  maidenly  shyness.  He  had  the  tenderest  indul- 
gence to  his  daughter's  confusion,  but  he  was  not  without 
a  humorous,  middle-aged  realization  of  the  extremely  tran- 
sitory nature  of  this  phase  of  youth.  He  had  lived  long 
enough  to  see  so  many  blushing  girls  transformed  into  mat- 
ter-of-fact matrons  that  the  inevitable  end  of  the  business 
was  already  present  to  his  mind.  He  was  vastly  relieved 
that  Lydia  had  a  mother  to  understand  her  fancies,  and 
upon  his  wife,  whom  he  would  not  have  trusted  to  under- 
take the  smallest  business  transaction  without  his  advice, 
he  transferred,  with  a  sigh  of  content,  the  entire  responsibil- 
ity of  wisely  counseling  their  daughter.  "  Thank  the  Lord, 
that's  not  my  job ! "  he  had  often  said  about  some  knotty 
point  in  the  up-bringing  of  the  children.  Mrs.  Emery  had 
always  answered  that  she  could  not  be  too  thankful  for  a 
"  husband  who  was  not  a  meddler." 

The  Judge  now  listened  at  the  door  to  the  conversation 
between  the  two  women  with  a  grin  of  satisfaction. 

"  Why,  my  dear,  what  is  there  so  terrible  in  having  the 
handsomest  and  most  promising  young  man  in  Endbury 
devoted  to  you?  You  don't  need  to  marry  him  for  years 
and  years  if  you  don't  want  to  —  or  never,  if  you  don't 
like  him  enough."  She  laughed  a  little,  teasingly,  "  Perhaps 
it's  all  just  our  nonsense,  and  he  never  has  thought  of  you 
in  that  way.  Maybe  when  he  comes  to  see  you  he'll  tell 
you  about  a  beautiful  girl  in  Urbana  or  Cincinnati  that  he's 
engaged  to  —  and  then  what  would  your  silly  father  say?" 

"  Oh,  if  I  could  only  think  that,"  breathed  Lydia,  as 
though  she  had  been  reprieved  from  a  death  sentence.  "  Of 
course!  Father  was  just  joking.  But  he  startled  me  so! " 

"  He  was  probably  thinking  of  his  horrid  law  business, 


The  Shadow  of  the  Coming  Event        85 

darling.  When  a  big  trial  is  on  he  wouldn't  know  me  from 
Eve.  He  says  anything  at  such  times." 

Judge  Emery  laughed  noiselessly,  and  quite  without 
resentment  at  this  wifely  characterization. 

Lydia  went  on :  "  It  wasn't  so  much  what  he  said,  you 
know  —  as  —  oh,  the  way  he  took  it  for  granted — " 

"  Well,  don't  think  about  it  any  more,  dear ;  just  be  your 
sweet  natural  self  when  Paul  comes  to  see  you  the  first 
time  —  and  don't  let's  talk  any  more  now.  Mother  gets 
tired  so  easily." 

Lydia's  remorseful  outcry  over  having  fatigued  her 
mother  seemed  a  good  occasion  for  Judge  Emery's  entrance 
into  the  room  and  for  his  announcement.  He  felt  that  she 
would  make  an  effort  to  control  any  agitation  she  might 
feel,  and  indeed,  beyond  a  startled  gasp,  she  made  no  com- 
ment on  his  news.  Mrs.  Emery  herself  was  more  obviously 
stirred  to  emotion.  "  To-night  ?  Why,  I  didn't  think  he'd 
be  in  town  for  several  days  yet." 

"  He  only  got  in  at  five  o'clock  this  afternoon,  he  said." 

The  two  parents  exchanged  meaning  glances  over  this 
chronology,  and  Mrs.  Emery  flushed  and  smiled.  "  Now, 
Lydia,"  she  said,  "  it's  a  perfect  shame  I'm  not  well  enough 
to  be  there  when  he  comes.  It  would  make  it  easier  for 
you.  But  I  wish  you'd  say  honestly  whether  you'd  rather 
have  your  father  there  or  see  Paul  alone." 

Judge  Emery's  face  took  on  an  aggrieved  look  of  alarm. 
"  Good  gracious,  my  dear !  What  good  would  I  be  ?  You 
know  I  can't  be  tactful.  Besides,  I've  got  an  appointment 
with  Melton." 

Lydia  rose  from  where  she  knelt  by  the  bed.  Her  chin 
was  quivering.  "  Why,  you  make  me  feel  so  —  so  queer ! 
Both  of  you !  —  As  though  it  were  anything  —  to  see  Paul 
—  when  I've  known  him  always." 

Her  mother  seized  on  the  role  opened  to  them  by  this 
speech,  and  said  quickly :  "  Why,  of  course !  Aren't  we 
silly!  I  don't  know  what  possesses  us.  When  he  comes 
you  just  run  along  and  see  him,  and  say  your  father  and 
I  are  sorry  not  to  be  there." 


86  The  Squirrel-Cage 

During  the  next  half-hour  she  made  every  effort,  hero- 
ically though  obviously  seconded  by  her  husband,  to  keep 
the  conversation  in  a  light  and  casual  vein,  but  when  the 
door-bell  rang,  they  all  three  heard  it  with  a  start.  Mrs. 
Emery  said,  very  carelessly,  "  There  he  is,  dear.  Run  along 
and  remember  me  to  him."  But  she  pulled  Lydia  down  to 
her,  straightened  a  bow  on  her  waist  with  a  twitch,  loosened 
a  lock  of  the  girl's  shining  dark  hair,  and  kissed  her  with 
a  sudden  yearning  fervor. 

After  they  were  alone,  Judge  Emery  laughed  aloud. 
"  You're  just  as  bad  as  I  am,  Sarah.  You  don't  say  any- 
thing, but — " 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  his  wife  said ;  "  I  can't  help  it ! "  She 
deliberated  unresignedly  over  the  situation  for  a  moment, 
and  then,  "  It  seems  as  though  I  couldn't  have  it  so,  to  be 
sick  just  now,  when  I'm  needed  so  much.  This  first  month 
is  so  important!  And  Lydia's  getting  such  a  different  idea 
of  things  from  what  I  meant,  having  this  awful  time  with 
servants,  and  all.  I  have  a  sort  of  feeling  once  in  a  while 
that  she's  getting  notions ! "  She  pronounced  the  word 
darkly. 

"  Notions  ?  "  Judge  Emery  asked.  He  had  never  learned 
to  interpret  his  wife's  obscurities  when  the  mantle  of  intui- 
tions .fell  on  her. 

"  Oh,  don't  ask  me  what  kind!  I  don't  know.  If  I  knew 
I  could  do  something  about  it.  But  she  speaks  queerly  once 
in  a  while,  and  the  evening  of  the  day  she  was  out  with 
Marietta  in  the  Black  Rock  woods  she  was —  Do  you 
know,  I  think  it's  not  good  for  Lydia  to  be  outdoors  too 
much.  It  seems  to  go  to  her  head  so.  She  gets  to  looking 
like  Harry  —  almost  reckless,  and  like  some  little  scamper- 
ing wild  animal." 

Judge  Emery  rose  and  buttoned  his  coat  about  his  spare 
figure.  "  Maybe  she  takes  a  back  track,  after  some  of  my 
folks.  You  know  there's  one  line  in  my  mother's  family 
that  was  always  crazy  about  the  woods.  My  grandfather 
on  my  mother's'  side  used  to  go  off  just  as  regular  as  the 
month  of  May  came  around,  and — " 


The  Shadow  of  the  Coming  Event        87 

Mrs.  Emery  interrupted  him  with  the  ruthless  and  justi- 
fiable impatience  of  people  at  the  family  history  of  their 
relations  by  marriage.  "  Oh,  go  along !  And  stop  and 
speak  to  Paul  on  your  way  out.  Just  drop  in  as  you  pass 
the  door.  We  don't  want  to  really  chaperone  her.  No- 
body does  that  yet  —  but  —  the  Hollisters  are  so  formal 
about  their  girls  —  well,  you  stop  in,  anyhow.  It's  borne  in 
on  me  that  that'll  look  better,  after  all." 


CHAPTER  IX 
FATHER  AND  DAUGHTER 

IN  the  midst  of  his  conference  with  Dr.  Melton,  an  hour 
later,  it  came  upon  Judge  Emery  with  a  clap  that  he  had 
forgotten  this  behest  of  his  wife's,  plunged  deep  in  legal 
speculations  as  he  had  been,  the  instant  he  turned  from  her 
door.  He  brought  his  hand  down  on  the  table. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  asked  the  little  doctor,  peering  up 
at  him. 

"  Oh,  nothing  important  —  women's  cobwebs.  I'm  afraid 
I'll  have  to  go,  though.  We  can  take  this  up  again  to-mor- 
row, can't  we  ?  " 

"  At  your  service,"  said  the  doctor ;  but  he  pulled  with 
some  exasperation  at  a  big  pile  of  pamphlets  still  to  be 
examined. 

"  It's  something  about  Lydia's  receiving  a  call  from  Paul 
Hollister,  and  her  mother  wanting  me  to  stop  in  as  I  left 
the  house  and  say  good-evening  —  sort  of  represent  the  fam- 
ily —  do  the  proper  thing.  Don't  it  tickle  you  to  see  women 
who  used  to  sleigh-ride  from  seven  to  eleven  every  evening 
in  a  little  cutter  just  big  enough  for  one  and  a  half,  begin 
to  wonder  if  they  hadn't  better  chaperone  their  girls  when 
they  have  callers  in  the  next  room  ?  " 

He  stirred  up  the  pamphlets  with  a  discontented  look. 
"  Confound  it,  I  wish  I  could  stay !  Which  one  of  those 
has  the  statistics  about  the  accidents  when  the  men  aren't 
allowed  one  day  in  seven?" 

"  See  here,  Emery ! "  In  spite  of  his  evident  wish  to 
exhort,  the  doctor  continued  sitting  as  he  spoke.  He  was 
so  short  that  to  rise  could  have  given  him  no  perceptible 


Father  and  Daughter  89 

advantage  over  the  tall  lawyer.  "  See  here ;  do  you  know 
that  you  have  a  most  unusual  girl  for  a  daughter  ?  " 

"  I  have  heard  people  say  that  I  have  a  glimmering  notion 
of  her  merits,"  said  the  other  with  a  humorous  gravity. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  pretty,  and  appealing,  and  with  a  good 
complexion,  and  all  that  —  and  I  don't  mean  you  don't  spoil 
her  most  outrageously.  I  mean  she's  got  the  oddest  make-up 
for  a  modern  American  girl  —  she's  simple." 

"  I  don't  see  anything  odd  about  her  —  or  simple !  "  Her 
father  resented  the  adjectives  with  some  warmth. 

Dr.  Melton  answered  with  his  usual  free-handed  use  of 
language :  "  Well,  it's  because,  like  everybody  else  old  and 
spoiled  and  stodgy  and  settled,  you've  no  eyes  in  your  head 
when  it  comes  to  something  important,  like  young  people. 
Because  they're  all  smooth  and  rosy  you  think  they're  all 
alike."  He  rushed  on,  delivering  himself  as  always  with 
restless  vivacity  of  gesture,  "  I  tell  you  youth  is  one  of  the 
most  wastefully  ignored  forces  in  the  world!  Talk  about 
our  neglecting  to  get  the  good  out  of  our  water-power! 
The  way  we  shut  off  the  capacity  of  youth  to  see  things 
as  they  are,  before  it  gets  purblind  with  our  own  cowardly 
unreason  —  why,  it's  as  if  we  tried  to  make  water  run 
uphill  instead  of  turning  our  mill-wheels  with  its  natural 
energy." 

Judge  Emery  had  listened  to  a  word  or  two  of  this 
harangue  and  then  had  looked  for  and  found  his  hat  and 
coat,  with  which  he  had  invested  himself,  and  now  stood 
ready  for  the  street,  one  hand  on  the  knob  of  the  door. 
"  Well,  good-night  to  you,"  he  said  pleasantly,  as  though 
the  doctor  were  not  speaking ;  "  I'll  try  to  see  you  to- 
morrow." 

Dr.  Melton  jumped  to  his  feet,  laughing,  ran  across  the 
room  and  caught  at  the  other's  arm.  "  Don't  blame  me. 
Much  preaching  of  true  gospel  to  deaf  ears  has  made  me 
yell  all  the  time.  You  know  you  don't  really  hear  me,  any 
more  than  anyone  else." 

"  There's  no  doubt  about  that,  I  don't ! "  acquiesced  tho 
Judge  frankly. 


go  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  I  will  run  on,  though  I  know  it  never  does  any  good. 
How'd  I  begin  this  time?  What  started  me  off?  What 
was  I  saying?  " 

"  You  were  saying  that  Lydia  was  queer  and  half-witted," 
said  the  Judge  moderately. 

"  I  said  she  was  simple  —  and  by  that  I  mean  she's  so 
wise  you'd  better  look  out  or  she'll  find  you  out.  She's 
as  dangerous  as  a  bomb.  She  has  a  scent  for  essentials. 
She  can  tell  'em  from  all  our  flummery.  I'm  afraid  of  her, 
and  I'm  afraid  for  her !  Remember  the  fate  of  the  father 
in  the  Erl-King!  He  thought,  I  dare  say,  that  he  was 
doing  a  fine  thing  for  his  child,  to  hurry  it  along  to  a  nice, 
warm,  dry,  safe  place ! " 

Judge  Emery  broke  in,  impatient  of  this  fantastic  word- 
bandying.  "  Oh,  come,  Melton,  I  can't  stand  here  while 
you  spin  your  paradoxes.  I've  got  to  get  home  before 
young  Hollister  leaves  or  my  wife  won't  like  it." 

"  I'll  go  with  you,  then,"  cried  the  little  doctor,  clapping 
on  his  hat.  "You  sha'n't  escape  me  that  way.  I'm  in 
full  cry  after  the  best  figure  of  speech  I've  hit  on  in 
months." 

"  Good  Lord !  "  The  lawyer  looked  down  laughingly  at 
his  friend  as  the  two  set  off,  a  stork  beside  a  sparrow. 
"  You  and  your  figures !  " 

"  It  came  over  me  with  a  bang  the  other  day  that  in 
Lydia  we  have  in  our  midst  that  society-destroying  child 
in  The  Kaiser's  New  Clothes" 

"  Eh?  "  said  Lydia's  father  blankly. 

"  You  remember  the  last  scene  in  that  inimitable  tale  ? 
Where  the  Kaiser  walks  abroad  with  all  the  people  shout- 
ing and  hurrahing  for  the  new  clothes,  and  not  daring  to 
trust  their  own  eyes,  and  suddenly  a  little  child's  voice  is 
heard,  '  But  the  Kaiser  has  nothing  on ! ' J 

"  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,"  said  the 
Judge  with  a  patient  indifference. 

"  Well,  you  will  know  when  you  hear  Lydia  say  that 
some  day.  She  knows  —  she'll  know !  Perhaps  you've 
done  well  to  send  her  to  that  idiotic  finishing  school." 


Father  and  Daughter  91 

"  Don't  lay  it  to  me ! "  cried  the  Judge,  laughing ;  "  / 
didn't  send  her  —  or  not  send  her.  If  you  were  married 
you'd  know  that  fathers  never  have  anything  to  say  about 
what  their  daughters  do." 

"  More  fools  they ! "  rejoined  the  doctor  pointedly. 
"  But  in  this  case  maybe  it's  all  right.  She's  as  ignorant 
as  a  Hottentot,  of  course,  but  perhaps  any  real  education 
might  have  spoiled  her  innate  capacity  to  — " 

"  Oh,  pshaw ! "  The  Judge  was  vaguely  uneasy.  "  You 
let  Lydia  alone.  Talk  your  nonsense  about  something 
else.  There's  nothing  queer  about  Lydia,  thank  heavens! 
She's  just  like  all  young  ladies." 

"  That's  a  horrible  thing  to  say  about  one's  own  daugh- 
ter ! "  cried  the  doctor,  falling  immediately  into  the  lightly 
mournful,  satirical  vein  that  was  the  alternative  to  his  usual 
racing  talk.  "  There  won't  be  anything  queer  about  her 
long,  that's  fact.  In  real  life  the  child  is  never  really 
allowed  to  complete  that  sentence.  A  hundred  hands  are 
clapped  over  its  mouth,  and  it's  hustled,  and  shaken,  and 
frightened,  and  scolded,  till  it  thinks  there's  something  the 
matter  with  its  eyesight.  And  Lydia's  a  sweet,  gentle 
child,  who'll  want  to  say  whatever  pleases  people  she  loves 
—  that'll  be  another  bandage  over  her  eyes.  And  she's 
not  dowered  with  an  innate  fondness  for  shrieking  out 
contradictions  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  and  unless  you've  a 
real  passion  for  that  you  get  silenced  early  in  life." 

The  lawyer  laughed  with  the  good-natured  contempt  of 
a  large,  silent  man  for  a  small,  voluble  one.  "  That's  a 
tragedy  you  can't  know  much  about  from  experience, 
Melton.  No  cruel  force  ever  silenced  you." 

He  paused  at  the  walk  leading  to  his  house.  A  big  street 
light  glowed  and  sputtered  over  their  heads.  "  Come  in, 
won't  you,  and  see  Lydia  ?  " 

"  No ;  no  cruel  force  has  ever  silenced  me,"  the  doctor 
mused,  putting  his  hands  slowly  into  his  pockets,  "  but  it 
has  bound  me  hand  and  foot.  I  talk,  and  I  talk,  but  do 
you  ever  see  me  doing  anything  different  from  the  worst 
fools  of  us  all  ?  " 


92  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Are  you  coming  in  ?  "  The  Judge  spoke  with  his  absent 
tolerance  of  his  doctor's  fancies. 

"  No,   thank   you,   as   the    farmer   said   to  the   steeple- 
climber.     I'm  going  home  to  my  lonely  office  to  give  thanks 
/   to  Providence  that  I'm  not  responsible  for  a  daughter." 

The  Judge  frowned.    "  Nonsense !     Look  at  Marietta." 

"  I  do,"  said  the  doctor. 

'  "  Well  —  ?  "  The  lawyer  was  challenging.  In  the  long 
run  the  doctor  rubbed  him  the  wrong  way. 

"  I  hope  you  make  a  better  job  of  bandaging  Lydia's 
eyes  than  you  did  hers." 

The  Judge  had  turned  toward  the  house.  At  this  he 
stopped  and  made  an  irritated  gesture.  "  Melton,  you  are 
enough  to  give  a  logical  man  brain  fever.  You're  always 
proclaiming  that  parents  have  no  real  influence  over  their 
children's  lives  —  that  it's  fate,  or  destiny,  or  temperament 
—  and  now  —  you  blame  me  because  Marietta's  discon- 
tented over  her  husband's  small  income." 

The  doctor  looked  up  quickly,  his  face  twitching.  "  You 
think  that's  the  cause  of  Marietta's  discontent?  By 
Heaven,  I  wish  Lydia  could  go  into  a  convent." 

Suddenly  his  many-wrinkled  little  face  set  like  a  mask 
of  tragedy.  "  Oh,  Nat,  you  know  what  Lydia's  always 
been  to  me  —  like  my  own  —  as  precious  —  Oh,  take 
care  of  her!  take  care  of  her!  See,  Lydia  can't  fight. 
She  can't,  even  if  she  knew  what  was  going  on  to  fight 
against — "  His  voice  broke.  He  looked  up  at  his  tall 
friend  and  shivered. 

j  Judge  Emery  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder  with  a  rough 
friendliness.  "  No  wonder  you  do  miracles  in  curing 
women,  Marius.  You  must  know  their  insides.  You  talk 
like  a  mother  in  a  fit  of  the  nerves  over  a  sick  child.  In 
the  Lord's  name,  what  -has  Lydia  to  fight  against?  If 
there  was  ever  a  creature  with  a  happy,  successful  life 
before  her  —  Besides,  don't  we  all  stand  ready  to  do  her 
fighting  for  her  ?  " 

Though  the  night  was  cool,  the  doctor  took  off  his  hat 
and  wiped  his  forehead.  He  looked  up  once  as  though 


Father  and  Daughter  93 

he  were  about  to  speak,  but  in  the  end  he  only  put  his  hat 
back  on  his  head,  nodded,  and  went  his  way,  his  quick,  light, 
uneven  tread  waking  a  faint  echo  in  the  empty  street. 

As  the  Judge  let  himself  in  at  the  front  door,  a  murmur 
of  voices  from  the  brightly-lighted  parlor  struck  gratefully 
on  his  ear.  He  was  not  too  late.  "  How  are  you,  Hpllis- 
ter  ?  "  he  called  as  he  pulled  off  his  overcoat.  "  Glad  to  see 
you  back.  Let's  hear  all  about  the  Urbana  experience." 

Hollister's  dramatic  interest  in  each  engagement  of  his 
battle  for  success  was  infectious.  Those  who  knew  him, 
whether  they  liked  him  or  not,  waited  for  news  of  the 
results  of  his  latest  skirmish  as  they  waited  for  the  install- 
ments of  an  exciting  serial  story. 

As  the  older  man  entered,  the  tall,  quick-moving  young 
fellow  came  over  to  the  door  and  shook  his  hand  with 
energy.  The  Judge  reflected  that  nobody  but  Hollister 
could  so  convey  the  effect  that  he  was  being  made  kindly 
welcome  in  his  own  house ;  but  he  did  not  dislike  this  vigor 
of  personality.  He  sat  down  on  the  chair  which  his  young 
guest  indicated  as  a  suitable  one,  and  rubbed  his  chin,  smil- 
ing at  his  daughter.  "  Dr.  Melton  sent  his  love  to  you, 
but  he  wouldn't  come  in." 

Paul  looked  brightly  at  Lydia.  "  I  should  hope  not ! 
My  first  evening  with  her!  To  share  it  with  anybody! 
Except  her  father,  of  course ! "  He  added  the  last  as  an 
afterthought,  more  with  the  air  of  putting  the  Judge  at  his 
ease  than  of  excusing  himself  for  an  ungraceful  slip  of  the 
tongue. 

The  Judge  laughed,  restraining  an  impulse  to  call  out, 
"  You're  a  wonder,  young  man ! "  and  said  instead,  "  Well, 
let's  hear  the  news." 

Lydia  said  nothing,  but  her  aspect,  always  vividly  ex- 
pressive of  her  mood,  struck  her  father  as  odd.  As  he 
glanced  at  her  from  time  to  time  during  the  ready,  spirited 
narrative  of  the  young  "  captain  in  the  army  of  electricity," 
as  he  had  once  called  himself,  Lydia's  father  felt  a  qualm 
of  uneasiness.  Her  lips  were  very  red  and  a  little  open, 
as  though  she  were  breathless  from  some  exertion,  and  a 


94  The  Squirrel-Cage 

deep  flush  stained  her  cheeks.  She  looked  at  Paul  while 
he  talked  animatedly  to  her  father,  but  when  he  addressed 
himself  to  her  she  looked  down  or  away,  meeting  her 
father's  eyes  with  a  curious  effect  of  not  seeing  him  at  all. 
The  Judge,  moved  by  the  oblique,  harassing  intimations 
he  had  been  forced  to  hear  from  the  doctor  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  his  not  understanding  all  that  was  in  his  daughter's 
mind,  was  oppressed  by  that  most  nightmarish  of  emotions 
for  a  man  of  clear-cut  intellectual  interests  —  an  apprehen- 
sion, like  an  imperceptible,  clinging  cobweb,  not  to  be 
brushed  away.  He  wished  heartily  that  the  next  year  were 
over  and  Lydia  "  safely  married."  Daughters  were  so 
much  more  of  a  responsibility  than  sons.  They  forced  on 
one  the  reality  of  a  world  of  intangible  conditions  which 
one  could,  somehow,  comfortably  ignore  with  sons.  And 
yet,  how  about  Harry?  Perhaps  if  some  one  had  not 
ignored  with  him  — 

"  I  should  have  been  back  ten  days  ago,"  Paul  drew  to 
the  end  of  his  story,  "  but  I  simply  had  to  wait  to  oversee 
those  tests  myself.  Since  I've  adopted  that  rule  of  per- 
sonally checking  the  inspector's  work,  we've  been  able  to 
report  forty  per  cent,  fewer  complaints  of  newly  installed 
dynamos  to  the  general  office.  And  you  see  in  this  case, 
from  the  accident,  what  might  have  happened." 

"  By  the  Lord ! "  cried  the  lawyer,  moved  in  spite  of  his 
preoccupations  by  the  story  of  danger  the  other  had  been 
relating,  "  I  should  think  it  would  turn  your  hair  white 
every  time  a  dynamo's  installed.  How  did  you  feel  when 
the  fly-wheel  broke  ?  " 

"  The  fly-wheel  isn't  on  the  dynamo,  of  course,"  cor- 
rected Paul,  "  so  I  don't  feel  responsible  for  it  in  a  business 
way,  and  that's  everything.  As  for  being  frightened,  why, 
it's  all  over  so  quickly.  You  don't  have  time  to  take  in 
what's  happening.  You're  there  or  you're  not.  And  if 
you  are,  the  best  thing  is  to  get  busy  with  repairs,"  he 
added,  with  a  simple,  manly  depreciation  of  his  courage. 
"  You  mustn't  think  it  often  happens,  you  know ;  it's  sup- 
posed never  to." 


Father  and  Daughter  95 

He  spoke  of  the  personal  side  of  the  matter  with  a  dry 
brevity  which  contrasted  effectively  with  the  unconscious 
eloquence  with  which  he  had  previously  brought  before 
their  eyes  the  tense  excitement  in  the  new  power-house 
when  the  wheels  first  stir  to  life  in  incredibly  rapid  revo- 
lutions and  the  mysterious  modern  genii  begins  to  rush 
through  the  wires.  At  no  time  did  Lydia's  suitor  show 
to  better  advantage  than  in  speaking  of  his  profession.  The 
alertness  of  his  face  and  the  prompt  decision  of  his  speech 
suited  the  subject.  His  mouth  fell  into  lines  of  grimly 
fixed  purpose  which  expressed  even  more  than  his  words 
when  he  spoke  of  the  rivalry  in  endurance,  patience  and 
daring  in  the  army  of  young  electrical  engineers,  all  set, 
as  he  was,  on  crowding  one  another  out  of  the  rapidly 
narrowing  road  to  preferment  and  the  few  great  golden 
prizes  of  the  profession. 

This  evening  he  was  more  than  usually  fervent.  Judge 
Emery  thought  he  detected  in  him  traces  of  the  same  ex- 
citement that  flamed  from  Lydia's  cheeks.  "  I  tell  you, 
Judge,  I  was  wrong  when  I  spoke  of  the  '  army '  of 
electricity.  In  the  army  advancement  comes  only  from 
somebody's  death,  and  with  us  it's  simply  a  question  of 
who's  got  the  most  to  give.  He  gets  the  most  back  —  and 
that's  all  there  is  to  it.  The  company's  bound  to  have  the 
man  it  can  get  the  most  work  out  of.  If  you  can  do  two 
ordinary  men's  work,  you  get  two  men's  pay.  See? 
There's  no  limit  to  the  application  of  that  principle. 
Why,  our  field  organizer  on  the  Pacific  Coast  is  only  a  little 
older  than  I,  and,  by  Jove!  the  work  they  say  he'll  turn 
off  is  something  marvelous!  You  wouldn't  believe  it 
But  you  can  train  yourself  to  it,  like  everything  else.  To 
be  able  to  concentrate  —  not  to  lose  a  detail  —  to  put 
every  ounce  of  your  force  into  it  —  that's  the  thing." 

He  brought  one  hand  down  inside  the  other,  and  sat  for 
a  moment  in  silence  as  tense  with  stirring  possibilities  to 
the  others  as  to  himself.  The  Judge  felt  moved  to  a  most 
unusual  sensation,  as  if  he  were  a  loosened  bowstring  beside 
this  twanging,  taut  intensity.  He  felt  slightly  dismayed  to 


96  The  Squirrel-Cage 

have  his  unspoken  principles  carried  to  this  nth  powe*. 
He  had  given  the  best  of  himself,  all  his  thoughts,  illu- 
sions, hopes,  endeavors,  to  his  ideal  of  success,  but  his  ambi- 
tion had  never  been  concentrated  enough  to  serve  as  a  lens 
through  which  the  rays  of  his  efforts  might  focus  themselves 
into  the  single  beam  of  devastating  heat  on  which  Paul 
counted  so  certainly  to  burn  away  the  obstacles  between  him- 
self and  success.  Various  protesting  comments  rose  to  his 
lips,  which  he  kept  back,  disconcerted  to  find  how  much  they 
resembled  certain  remarks  of  Dr.  Melton's. 

The  young  man  stirred,  looked  at  Lydia,  and  smiled 
brilliantly.  "  I  mustn't  keep  this  little  sick-nurse  up  any 
later,  I  suppose,"  he  said;  but  for  a  moment  he  made  no 
movement  to  go.  He  and  Lydia  exchanged  a  gaze  as  long 
and  silent  as  if  they  had  been  alone.  It  occurred  to  the 
Judge  that  they  both  looked  dazzled.  When  Paul  rose 
he  drew  a  long  breath  and  shook  his  head  half  humorously 
at  his  host.  "  You  and  I  will  have  to  look  to  our  guns, 
during  the  next  season,  to  hold  our  own,  won't  we?  I've 
been  making  Lydia  promise  to  reserve  me  three  dances 
at  every  single  ball  this  winter,  and  I  think  I'm  heroic  not 
to  insist  on  more  —  but  her  first  season  —  !  " 

Lydia  said,  with  her  pretty,  light  laugh,  a  little  shaking 
now,  "  But  suppose  you're  out  of  town,  setting  up  some 
new  dynamo  or  something  and  your  three  dances  come 
along?" 

Paul  crossed  the  room  to  her,  as  if  drawn  irresistibly  by 
the  sound  of  her  voice.  He  stood  by  her,  looking  down  into 
her  eyes  (he  was  very  tall),  bending  over  her,  smiling, 
pressing,  confident,  masterful.  "  You're  to  sit  out  those 
three  dances  and  think  of  me,  and  think  of  me  —  of 
course !  I  shall  be  thinking  of  you." 

Lydia's  little  tremulous  air  of  archness  dropped  under 
this  point-blank  rejoinder.  She  flushed,  and  looked  at  her 
father.  That  unimaginative  person  started  toward  her  as 
though  she  had  called  to  him  for  help,  and  then,  ashamed 
of  his  inexplicable  impulse,  turned  away  confusedly  and 
disappeared  into  the  hall. 


Father  and  Daughter  97 

Paul  took  this  movement  as  a  frank  statement  of  the 
older  man's  desire  to  be,  for  the  moment,  rid  of  him.  "  Oh, 
I  am  going,  Judge,"  he  called  after  him,  unabashed ;  "  it 
is  just  a  bit  hard  to  tear  myself  away  —  I've  been  waiting 
so  long  for  her  to  get  back !  "  To  Lydia  he  went  on,  "  I've 
grown  thin  and  pale  waiting  for  you,  while  you  —  look 
at  yourself,  you  heartless  little  witch !  " 

He  pointed  across  to  a  tall  mirror  in  which  they  were 
reflected  against  the  rich  background  of  his  roses.  For  a 
moment  both  the  beautiful  young  creatures  looked  each 
into  his  own  eyes,  mysterious  with  youth's  total  ignorance 
of  its  own  meaning.  Paul  took  Lydia's  hand  in  his,  and 
pointed  again  to  their  reflections  as  they  stood  side  by 
side.  He  tried  to  speak,  but  for  once  his  ready  tongue  was 
silent.  Judge  Emery  came  back  to  the  door,  a  weary 
patience  on  his  white,  tired  face. 

The  young  man  turned  away  with  a  sigh  and  a  smile. 
"  Yes,  yes,  Judge,  I'm  off.  Good-night,  Lydia.  Don't 
forget  the  theater  Wednesday  night." 

He  crossed  the  room  with  a  rapid,  even  step,  shook  hands 
with  the  Judge,  and  got  himself  out  of  the  room  with  an 
easy  briskness  which  the  older  man,  mindful  of  his  own 
rustic  youth,  was  half -inclined  to  envy. 

After  he  and  Lydia  were  left  alone  he  did  not  venture 
a  word  of  comment,  lest  he  hit  on  the  wrong  thing.  He 
went  silently  about,  putting  out  the  lights,  and  locking  the 
windows.  Lydia  stood  where  Paul  had  left  her,  looking 
at  her  bright  image  in  the  mirror.  When  the  last  bulb 
went  out,  the  room  was  in  a  flickering  twilight,  the  street 
arc-light  blinking  uncertainly  into  the  windows.  Judge 
Emery  stood  waiting  for  his  daughter  to  move.  He  could 
scarcely  see  her  form  —  her  face  not  at  all,  but  there 
flashed  suddenly  upon  him  the  memory  of  her  appealing 
look  toward  him  earlier.  It  shook  him  as  it  had  then. 
His  heart  yearned  over  her.  He  would  have  given  any- 
thing he  possessed  for  the  habit  of  intimate  talk  with  her. 
He  put  out  his  hands,  but  in  the  twilight  she  did  not  see 
the  gesture.  He  felt  shy,  abashed,  horribly  ill  at  ease, 


98  The  Squirrel-Cage 

torn  by  his  tenderness,  by  his  sense  of  remoteness.  He  said, 
uncertainly,  "  Lydia  —  Lydia  dear  — " 

She  started.  "  Oh,  yes,  of  course.  It's  late."  She 
passed,  brushed  lightly  against  him,  as  he  stood  trembling 
with  the  sense  of  her  dearness  to  him.  She  began  to 
ascend  the  stairs.  He  had  felt  from  her  the  emanation  of 
excitement,  guessed  that  she  was  shivering  like  himself 
before  a  crisis  —  and  he  could  find  no  word  to  say. 

She  had  passed  him  as  though  he  were  a  part  of  the  fur- 
niture. He  had  never  talked  to  her  about  —  about  things. 
He  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  in  the  darkness,  listening 
to  her  light,  mounting  footfall.  Once  he  opened  his  mouth 
to  call  to  her,  but  the  habit  of  a  lifetime  closed  it. 

"She  will  talk  to  her  mother,"  he  told  himself;  "her 
mother  will  know  what  to  say."  When  he  followed  her  up 
the  stairs  he  was  conscious  chiefly  that  he  was  immeas- 
urably tired.  Melton,  perhaps,  had  something  on  his  side 
with  his  everlasting  warnings  about  nervous  breakdowns. 
He  could  not  stand  long  strains  as  he  used  to  do. 

He  fell  asleep  tracing  out  the  thread  of  the  argument  pre- 
sented that  day  by  the  counsel  for  the  defense. 


CHAPTER  X 
CASUS  BELLI 

DR.  MELTON  looked  up  in  some  surprise  from  his  circle 
of  lamplight  as  his  goddaughter  came  swiftly  into  the 
room.  "  Your  mother  worse  ?  "  he  queried  sharply. 

"  No,  no,  dear  Godfather.  I  just  thought  I'd  come  over 
and  see  you  for  a  while.  I  had  a  little  headache  —  Mari- 
etta's back  from  Cleveland  to-day,  and  she  and  Flora  Bur- 
gess are  at  the  house  — " 

"  You've  said  enough.  I'm  thankful  that  you  have  this 
refuge  to  fly  to  from  such  — " 

"  Oh,  Flora's  not  so  bad  as  you  make  her  out,  the  queer, 
kind  little  old  dowdy  —  only  I  didn't  feel  like  talking 
'  parties,'  and  '  who's  who,'  to-night  —  and  their  being  with 
Mother  made  it  all  right  for  me  to  leave  her." 

The  doctor  took  off  his  eye-shade  and  showed  his  little 
wizened  face  rather  paler  than  usual.  "  That's  a  combina- 
tion that  would  kill  me,  and  your  mother  not  well  yet  — 
still,  many  folks,  many  tastes." 

He  looked  at  Lydia  penetratingly.  She  had  taken  a 
chair  before  the  soft-coal  fire  and  was  staring  at  it  rather 
moodily.  "  Well,  Lydia,  my  dear,  and  how  does  End- 
bury  strike  you  now?  Speaking  of  many  tastes,  what  are 
yours  going  to  be  like,  I  wonder  ?  " 

"  I  wonder,"  she  repeated  absently. 

"  Well,  at  least  you  know  whether  the  young  man  who 
called  on  you  last  night  is  to  your  taste  ?  " 

Lydia  turned  her  face  away  and  made  a  nervous  gesture. 
"Oh,  don't,  Godfather!" 

"  Very  well,  I  won't,"  he  said  cheerfully,  turning  to  his 
books  with  the  instinct  of  one  who  knows  his  womankind. 

99 


fioo  The  Squirrel-Cage 

There  was  a  long  silence,  broken  only  by  the  purring  of  the 
coal.  Then  Lydia  gave  a  laugh  and  went  to  sit  on  the  arm 
of  his  chair.  "Of  course  that  was  what  I  came  to  see 
you  about,"  she  admitted,  her  sensitive  lips  quivering  into 
a  smile  that  was  not  light-hearted ;  "  but  now  I'm  here  I 
find  I  haven't  anything  to  say.  Perhaps  you'd  better  give 
me  a  pink  pill  and  send  me  home  to  forget  all  about  every- 
thing." 

Dr.  Melton  took  her  fingers  and  held  them  closely  in  his 
thin,  sinewy  hands.  "  Oh,  if  I  could  —  if  I  only  could  do 
something  for  you ! "  He  searched  her  face  anxiously. 
"  What  did  young  Hollister  say  that  makes  you  so 
troubled?" 

She  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  his  writing-table  and  re- 
flected. "  It  wasn't  anything  he  said,"  she  admitted.  "  He 
was  all  right,  I  guess.  Father  had  scared  the  life  out  of  me 
before  he  came,  by  sort  of  taking  it  for  granted  —  Oh,  you 
know  —  the  silly  way  people  do  — " 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  Paul  was  as  nice  as  could  be  about  that,  so  far 
as  words  go —  He  didn't  say  a  thing  embarrassing  or  — 
or  hard  to  answer,  but  he  let  me  see  —  all  the  same!  He 
kept  saying  what  an  immense  help  I'd  be  to  an  ambitious 
man.  He  said  he  didn't  see  why  I  shouldn't  grow  into 
the  leader  of  Endbury  society,  like  the  Mrs.  Hollister,  his 
aunt,  that  he  and  his  sister  live  with,  you  know." 

"  I  suppose  he's  right,"  conceded  the  doctor,  reluctantly. 

"  Well,  while  he  was  talking  about  it,  it  seemed  all  very 
well  —  you  know  the  way  he  goes  at  things  —  how  he  makes 
you  feel  as  though  he  were  a  locomotive  going  sixty  miles 
an  hour  and  you  were  inside  the  engine  cab,  holding  on  for 
dear  life?" 

Dr.  Melton  shook  his  head.  "  Paul  has  given  me  a  great 
variety  of  sensations,"  he  admitted,  "  but  I  can't  say  that 
he  ever  gave  me  quite  this  locomotive-cab  illusion  you 
speak  of." 

"  Well,  he  has  me,  lots  of  times,"  persisted  Lydia.  "  It's 
awfully  exciting  —  you  don't  know  where  you're  going, 


Casus  Belli  101 

and  you  can't  stop  to  think,  everything  tears  past  you  so 
fast  and  your  breath  is  so  blown  out  of  you.  You  feel  like 
screaming.  You  forget  everything  else,  you  get  so  —  so 
stirred  up  and  excited.  But  after  it's  over  there's  always 
a  time  when  things  are  flat.  And  this  morning,  and  all  day 
long,  I've  felt  very  —  different  about  what  he  wants  and 
all.  I  don't  believe  I'm  very  well,  perhaps  —  or 
maybe  — "  she  broke  off,  to  say  with  emotion,  "  Oh,  God- 
father, wouldn't  it  be  too  awful  if  I  should  turn  out  to  be 
without  ambition."  She  pronounced  the  word  with  the 
reverence  for  its  meaning  that  had  been  drilled  into  her  all 
her  life,  and  looked  at  Dr.  Melton  with  troubled  eyes. 

He  thrust  his  lips  out  with  a  grimace  habitual  to  him 
in  moments  of  feeling,  and  for  an  instant  said  nothing. 
When  he  spoke  his  voice  broke  on  her  name,  as  it  had 
the  night  before  when  he  had  stood  looking  up  at  her  win- 
dows. "  Oh,  Lydia !  —  Oh,  my  dear,  I'm  terribly  afraid  of 
your  future ! " 

"  I'm  a  little  scared  of  it  myself,"  she  said  tremulously, 
and  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulder. 

She  was  the  first  to  speak.  "  Wouldn't  Marietta  just 
scream  with  laughter  at  us  ? "  she  reminded  him.  "  We  are 
foolish,  tool  There's  nothing  in  the  world  you  could  lay 
your  finger  on.  There's  nothing  anyhow,  I  guess,  but 
nerves.  I  wouldn't  dare  breathe  it  to  anybody  else,  but 
you  always  know  how  I'm  feeling,  anyhow.  It's  as  though 
—  here  I  am,  grown  up,  and  there's  nothing  for  me  to  do 
that's  worth  while  —  even  if  —  even  if  —  Paul  — " 

The  doctor  took  a  sudden  resolution.  "  Why  don't  you 
talk  to  your  father,  Lydia?  Why  don't  you  ask  him 
about  — " 

He  was  cut  short  by  Lydia's  gesture  of  utter  wonder. 
"  Father?  Don't  you  know  that  there's  a  big  trial  on  ?  He 
couldn't  tell  without  figuring  up,  if  you  should  ask  him 
quick,  whether  I'm  fourteen  or  nineteen  —  or  nine! 
Mother  wouldn't  let  me,  anyhow,  even  if  he  could  have  any 
idea  of  what  I  was  driving  at.  She  never  let  us  bother  him 
the  least  bit  when  there  was  something  big  happening  in 


IO2  The  Squirrel-Cage 

his  lawyering.  I  remember  that  time  I  had  pneumonia  and 
nearly  died,  when  I  was  a  little  girl,  that  she  told  him  I  had 
just  a  cold ;  and  he  never  knew  any  different  for  years  after- 
ward, when  I  happened  to  say  something  about  it.  She 
didn't  want  him  worried  when  he  needed  all  his  wits  for 
some  important  business." 

The  doctor  looked  at  her  with  frowning  intensity,  and 
then  down  at  his  papers.  He  seemed  on  the  point  of  some 
forcible  utterance,  which  he  restrained  with  many  twitchings 
of  his  mouth.  Finally  he  got  up  and  went  to  a  window, 
staring  out  silently. 

"  I  think  I'll  go  and  look  up  dear  Aunt  Julia,"  said  Lydia. 

"  Very  well,  my  dear,"  said  the  doctor  over  his  shoulder. 
"  She's  in  her  room,  I  think."  In  exactly  the  same  mild 
tone,  he  added,  "  Damnation !  " 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  asked  Lydia. 

He  turned  toward  her,  and  took  up  a  book  from  the  table. 
"  I  said  nothing,  dear  Lydia  —  I've  nothing  to  say,  I  find." 

Lydia  broke  into  a  light,  mocking  laugh  —  the  doctor's 
volubility  was  an  old  joke  —  and  began  to  speak,  when  a 

woman's  voice  called,  "  Oh,  Marius,  here's  Mr.  why, 

Lydia,  how  did  you  get  in  without  my  seeing  you  ?  " 

She  entered  the  room  as  she  spoke  —  a  middle-aged 
woman,  with  large  blue  eyes  and  graying  fair  hair,  who 
evidently  did  her  duty  by  the  prevailing  styles  in  dress  with 
a  comfortable  moderation  of  effort.  Lydia's  mother,  as 
the  sister  of  Mrs.  Sandworth's  long-dead  husband,  thought 
it  necessary,  from  time  to  time,  to  endeavor  to  stir  her  sister- 
in-law  up  to  a  keener  sense  of  what  was  due  the  world  in 
the  matter  of  personal  appearance;  but  Mrs.  Sandworth, 
born  a  Melton,  had  the  irritating  unconcern  for  social 
problems  of  that  distinguished  Kentucky  family.  She 
cared  only  to  please  her  brother  Marius,  she  said,  and  he 
never  cared  what  she  had  on,  but  only  what  was  in  her 
mind  —  a  remark  that  had  once  caused  Judge  Emery  to 
say,  in  a  fit  of  exasperation  with  her  wandering  wits,  that 
if  she  ever  had  as  little  on  as  she  had  in  her  mind,  he 
guessed  Melton  would  sit  up  and  take  notice. 


Casus  Belli  103 

Lydia  now  rushed  at  her  aunt,  exclaiming,  "  Oh,  Aunt 
Julia,  how  good  you  do  look  to  me!  The  office  door  was 
open  and  I  slipped  in  that  way,  without  ringing  the 
bell." 

"  It's  four  years  old,  and  never  been  touched,  not  even 
the  sleeves,"  said  the  other  deprecatingly. 

Her  brother  laughed.  "  Who  did  you  say  was  here  — 
Oh,  it's  you,  Rankin ;  come  in,  come  in." 

The  newcomer  was  half-way  across  the  room  before  he 
saw  Lydia.  He  stopped,  with  a  look  of  extreme  pleasure 
and  surprise,  which  Lydia  answered  with  a  frank  smile. 

"  Why,  have  you  met  my  niece  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Sandworth, 
looking  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  Oh,  yes ;  Mr.  Rankin's  my  oldest  new  friend  in  End- 
bury.  I  met  him  the  first  day  I  was  back." 

"  And  when  I  set  up  the  newel-post  — " 

"  And  I  ran  on  to  his  house  by  accident  the  day  Marietta 
and  I  were  out  with  little  Pete,  when  it  rained  and  I  bor- 
rowed his  overcoat  and  umbrella  — " 

"  And  then  I  had  to  call  to  take  them  away,  of  course  — " 

They  intoned  their  confessions  like  a  gay  antiphonal 
chant.  A  bright  color  had  come  up  in  Lydia's  cheeks.  She 
looked  very  sunny  and  good-humored,  like  a  cheerful  child, 
an  expression  which  up  to  that  year  had  been  habitual  to 
her.  Dr.  Melton  looked  at  her  without  speaking. 

"  So,  you  see,"  she  concluded,  "  not  to  speak  of  several 
other  times  —  we're  very  well  acquainted." 

"  Well,  Marius !  Did  you  ever !  "  Mrs.  Sandworth  ap- 
pealed to  her  brother. 

"  Oh,  I've  known  about  it  all  along.  Rankin  and  I  have 
discussed  Lydia  as  well  as  other  weighty  matters,  a  great 
many  times." 

Mrs.  Sandworth's  easily  diverted  mind  sped  off  into  an- 
other channel.  "  Yes,  how  you  do  discuss.  I'm  going  to 
look  right  at  the  clock  every  minute  from  now  on,  so's  to 
be  sure  to  remind  you  of  that  engagement  at  Judge  Emery's 
office  at  half -past  nine.  I  know  what  happens  when  you 
and  Mr.  Rankin  get  to  talking." 


104  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  I'll  not  stay  long;  Miss  Emery  has  precedence.** 

"  Oh,  don't  mind  me,"  said  Lydia. 

"  They  won't  —  nor  anything  else,"  her  aunt  assured  her. 

Rankin  laughed  at  this  characterization.  The  doctor  did 
not  seem  to  hear.  He  was  brooding,  and  drumming  on  the 
table.  From  this  reverie  he  was  startled  by  the  younger 
man's  next  statement. 

"  I've  got  an  apprentice,"  he  announced. 

"  Eh  ?  "  queried  the  doctor  with  unexpected  sharpness. 

"  The  fifteen-year-old  son  of  my  neighbor,  Luigi  Car- 
farone,  who  works  on  the  railroad.  The  boy's  been  bad 
—  truant  —  street  gamin  —  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  his 
mother,  who  comes  in  to  clean  for  me  sometimes,  has  been 
awfully  anxious  about  him.  But  it  seems  he  has  a  passion 
for  tools  —  maybe  his  ancestors  were  mediaeval  craftsmen. 
Anyhow,  he's  been  working  for  me  lately,  doing  some  of 
the  simpler  jobs,  and  really  learning  fast.  And  he's  been  so 
interested  he's  forgotten  all  his  deviltry.  So,  yesterday, 
didn't  he  and  his  father  and  his  mother  and  about  a  dozen 
littler  brothers  and  sisters  all  come  in  solemn  procession, 
dressed  in  their  best,  to  dedicate  him  to  me  and  my  pro- 
fession, as  they  grandly  call  it." 

"  Oh,  how  perfectly  lovely !  "  cried  Lydia. 

The  doctor  resumed  his  drumming  morosely.  "  Of 
course  you  know  the  end  of  that." 

"You  mean  he'll  get  tired  of  it,  and  take  to  robbing 
chicken-roosts  again  ?  " 

"  Not  much !  He'll  like  it,  and  stick  to  it,  and  bring 
others,  and  you'll  extend  operations  and  build  shops,  and  in 
'no  time  you'll  go  the  way  of  all  the  world  —  a  big  factory, 
running  night  and  day ;  you  on  the  keen  jump  every  minute ; 
dust  an  inch  thick  over  your  books  and  music;  nerves 
taut;  head  humming  with  business  schemes  to  beat  your 
competitors ;  forget  your  wife  most  of  the  time  except  to 
give  her  money;  making  profits  hand  over  fist;  suborning 
legislators  to  wink  at  your  getting  special  railroad  rates 
for  your  stuff;  can't  remember  how  many  children  you 
have ;  grand  success ;  notable  example  of  what  can  be  done 


Casus  Belli  105 

by  attention  to  business;  nervous  prostration  at  forty-five; 
Bright's  disease  at  fifty ;  leave  a  million." 

Rankin  burst  into  a  great  roar  of  boyish  laughter  at  this 
prophetic  flight.  The  doctor  gnawed  his  lower  lip,  and 
looked  at  him  without  smiling.  "  I've  got  ten  million  blue 
devils  on  my  back  to-night,"  he  said. 

"  So  I  see  —  so  I  see."  Rankin  was  still  laughing,  but 
as  he  continued  to  look  into  his  old  friend's  face  his  own 
grew  grave  by  reflection.  "  You  don't  believe  all  that  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  won't  mean  to.  It'll  come  gradually."  He 
broke  out  suddenly,  "  Good  Heavens,  Rankin,  give  me  a 
serious  answer." 

"  Answer !  "  The  cabinet-maker's  bewilderment  was  im- 
mense. "  Have  you  asked  me  anything?  " 

The  doctor  turned  away  to  his  desk  with  the  pettish  ges- 
ture of  a  woman  whose  inner  thoughts  are  not  divined. 

"  He  makes  me  feel  very  thick-witted  and  dense," 
Rankin  appealed  to  the  two  women. 

Mrs.  Sandworth  exonerated  him  from  blame.  "  Oh, 
nobody  ever  can  make  out  what  he's  driving  at.  I  never 
try."  She  took  out  a  piece  of  crochet  work.  "  Lydia, 
they're  at  it  now.  I  know  the  voice  Marius  gets  on. 
Would  you  make  this  in  shell  stitch?  It's  much  newer,  of 
course,  but  they  say  it  don't  wash  so  well."  As  Lydia's  at- 
tention wavered,  "  Oh,  there's  not  a  particle  of  use  in  try- 
ing to  make  out  what  they're  saying.  They  just  go  on  and 
on." 

Rankin  was  addressing  himself  to  the  doctor's  back.  "  I 
don't,  you  know,  see  anything  wicked  in  making  a  lot  of 
chairs  by  machinery  instead  of  a  few  by  hand.  I'm  no 
handcraft  faddist.  I  did  that  in  the  beginning  only  be- 
cause I  had  to  begin  somehow  to  earn  my  living  honestly 
without  being  too  tied  up  to  folks,  and  I  couldn't  think 
of  any  other  way.  But  I  think,  now  that  you've  put  the 
idea  into  my  head  —  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to 
gather  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood  around  me  —  and, 
by  gracious  1  the  girls  too!  That's  one  of  my  convictions 
—  that  girls  need  very  much  the  same  treatment  as  boys. 


106  The  Squirrel-Cage 

And  if  it  should  develop  into  a  large  business  (which  I 
doubt  strongly),  what's  the  harm?  The  motive  lying 
back  of  it  would  be  different  from  what  I  so  fear  and 
hate  in  big  businesses.  You  can  bet  your  last  cent  on  one 
thing,  and  that  is  that  the  main  idea  would  not  be  to  make 
as  much  furniture  as  fast  as  possible,  as  cheap  as  possible, 
but  to  make  it  good,  and  to  make  only  as  much  as  would 
leave  me  and  every  last  one  of  the  folks  that  work  for  me 
time  and  strength  to  live  — '  leisure  to  be  good.'  Who 
said  that,  anyway  ?  It's  fine." 

"Hymn  to  Adversity,"  supplied  the  doctor,  who  was 
better  read  in  the  poets  than  the  younger  generation.  He 
added,  skeptically,  "  Could  you,  though,  do  any  such  thing  ? 
Wouldn't  it  run  you,  once  you  got  to  going  ?  " 

"  Well,  if  worst  came  to  worst  — "  began  Rankin,  then 
changing  front,  he  began  again :  "  My  great-aunt  — " 

The  doctor  fell  back  in  his  chair  with  a  groan  and  a 
laugh. 

"  Yes ;  the  same  one  you  may  have  heard  me  mention 
before.  She  told  me  that  all  through  her  childhood  her 
family  was  saving  and  pulling  together  to  build  a  fine  big 
house.  They  worked  along  for  years  until,  when  she  was 
a  young  lady,  they  finally  accomplished  it;  built  a  big 
three-story  house  that  was  the  admiration  of  the  country- 
side. Then  they  moved  in.  And  it  took  the  women-folks 
every  minute  of  their  time,  and  more,  to  keep  it  clean  and 
in  order;  it  cost  as  much  to  keep  it  up,  heated,  furnished, 
repaired,  painted,  and  everything  the  way  a  fine  house 
should  be,  as  their  entire  living  used  to  cost.  The  fine  big 
grounds  they  had  laid  out  to  go  with  the  mansion  took  so 
much  time  to — " 

"  You  see.  You  see.  That's  just  what  I  meant,"  broke 
in  the  doctor. 

"  Well,  I'm  a  near  relative  of  my  great-aunt's.  One  day, 
when  all  the  rest  of  the  family  was  away,  she  set  fire  to 
the  house  and  burned  it  to  the  ground,  with  everything  in 
it." 

"  She  didn't ! "  broke  in  Mrs.  Sandworth,  who  had  been 


Casus  Belli  107 

coaxed  to  a  fitful  attention  by  the  promise  of  a  coherent 
story. 

Rankin  laughed.  "  Well,  that  was  the  way  she  told  it 
to  me,  and  I  don't  doubt  she  -would  have,"  he  amended. 

The  doctor  grunted,  "Huh!  But  would  you  I"  He 
went  on,  "  You  couldn't  compete  with  your  rivals,  any- 
how, if  you  didn't  concentrate  everything  on  making 
chairs.  Don't  you  know  the  successful  business  man's 
best  advertisement?  'All  of  my  life-strength  I've  put  into 
the  product  I  offer  you,'  he  says  to  the  public,  and  it's 
true." 

"  Oh,  well,  if  I  couldn't  do  business  there'd  be  an  end 
of  the  matter,  and  none  of  your  horrible  prophecies  would 
come  true." 

"  Your  wife  wouldn't  let  you." —  Dr.  Melton  took  up  an- 
other line  of  attack  — "  she'd  want  a  motor-car  and  '  nice ' 
associates  and  a  fashionable  school  for  the  children,  and  a 
home  in  the  '  respectable  '  part  of  town." 

Rankin's  easy-going  manner  changed.  He  sat  up  and 
frowned.  "  There  you  step  on  one  of  my  corns,  Doctor  " — 
he  did  not  apologize  for  the  rustic  metaphor  — "  I  don't 
believe  a  single,  solitary  identical  word  of  that.  It's  my 
most  hotly  held  conviction  that  women  are  so  much  like 
humans  that  you  can't  tell  the  difference  with  a  microscope. 
I  mean,  if  they're  interested  in  petty,  personal  things  it's 
because  they're  not  given  a  fair  chance  at  big,  impersonal 
things.  Everybody's  jumping  on  the  American  woman  be- 
cause she  knows  more  about  bridge-whist  than  about  her 
husband's  business.  Why  does  she  ?  Because  he's  satisfied 
to  have  her  —  you  can  take  my  word  for  it!  He  likes  her 
to  be  absorbed  in  clubs  and  bridge  and  idiotic  little  dabblings 
in  near-culture  and  pseudo-art,  just  for  the  reason  that  a 
busy  mother  gives  her  baby  a  sticky  feather  to  play  with. 
It  keeps  the  baby  busy.  It  keeps  his  wife's  attention  off 
him.  It's  the  American  man  just  as  much  as  the  woman 
who's  mortally  afraid  of  a  sure-enough  marriage  with  sure- 
enough  shared  interests.  He  doesn't  want  to  bother  with 
children,  or  with  the  servant  problem  or  the  questions  of 


io8  The  Squirrel-Cage 

family  life,  and  he  doesn't  want  his  wife  bothering  him  in 
his  business  any  more  than  she  wants  him  interfering  with 
hers.  That  idea  of  the  matter  is  common  to  them  both." 

"  That's  a  fine,  chivalric  view  of  the  situation,"  said  the 
doctor  sardonically.  "  Maybe  if  you'd  practiced  as  long  in 
as  many  American  families  as  I  have,  you  might  have  a  less 
idealistic  view  of  your  female  compatriots." 

"  I  don't  idealize  'em,"  cried  Rankin.  "  Good  Lord ! 
Don't  I  say  they're  just  like  men?  They  amount  to  some- 
thing if  they're  given  something  worth  while  to  do  —  not 
otherwise." 

"  Don't  you  call  bringing  up  children  worth  while  ?  " 

"  You  bet  I  do.  So  much  so  that  I'd  have  the  fathers 
take  their  full  half  of  it.  I'd  have  men  do  more  inside  the 
house  and  less  outside,  and  the  women  the  other  way  'round." 

The  doctor  recoiled  at  this.  "  Oh,  you're  a  visionary.  It 
couldn't  be  done." 

"  It  couldn't  be  done  in  a  minute,"  admitted  Rankin. 

The  doctor  mused.  "  It's  an  interesting  thought.  But 
it's  not  for  our  generation.  A  new  idea  is  like  a  wedge. 
You  have  to  introduce  it  by  the  thin  edge.  The  only  way 
to  get  it  started  is  by  beginning  with  the  children.  Adults 
are  hopeless.  There's  never  any  use  trying  to  change  them." 

"  Oh,  you  can't  fool  children,"  said  Rankin.  "  It's  no  use 
teaching  them  something  you're  not  willing  to  make  a  try 
at  yourself.  They  see  through  that  quick  enough!  What 
you're  really  after,  is  what  they  see  and  learn  to  go  after 
themselves.  If  any  thing's  to  be  done,  the  adults  must  take 
the  first  step." 

"  But,  as  society  is  organized,  the  idea  is  preposterous." 

"  Society's  been  organized  a  whole  lot  of  different  ways 
in  its  time.  Who  tells  me  that  it's  bound  to  stay  this  way? 
I  tell  you  right  now,  it  hasn't  got  me  bluffed,  anyhow !  My 
wife  —  if  I  ever  have  one  —  is  going  to  be  my  sure-enough 
wife,  and  my  children,  my  children.  I  won't  have  a  business 
that  they  can't  know  about,  or  that  doesn't  leave  me  strength 
enough  to  share  in  all  their  lives.  I  can  earn  enough  grow- 
ing potatoes  and  doing  odd  jobs  of  carpentering  for  that!" 


Casus  Belli  109 

The  doctor  looked  wonderingly  at  the  other's  kindling 
face.  "  Rankin,"  he  asked  irrelevantly,  "  aren't  there  ever 
moments  when  you  despair  of  the  world  ?  " 

The  voice  of  the  younger  man  had  the  fine  tremor  of  sin- 
cerity as  he  answered,  "Why,  good  heavens,  no,  Doctor! 
That's  why  I  dare  criticize  it  so." 

The  doctor  looked  with  an  intensity  almost  fierce  into 
the  other's  confident  eyes.  He  laid  his  thin,  sinewy  hand 
on  the  other's  big  brown  fist,  as  though  he  would  fain  absorb 
conviction  by  contact.  "  But  I'm  sick  with  the  slowness 
of  the  progress  you  talk  of  —  believe  in,"  he  burst  out 
finally.  "  It  comes  too  late  —  the  advance  from  our  tragic 
materialism ;  too  late  for  so  many  that  could  have  profited 
by  it  most."  He  looked  toward  Lydia  bending  over  her 
aunt's  fancy  work.  Rankin  followed  the  direction  of  his 
eyes. 

"  Yes ;  that's  what  I  mean,"  said  the  doctor  heavily,  rising 
from  his  chair.  "  That  and  such  thousands  of  others.  Oh, 
for  a  Theseus  to  hunt  down  this  Minotaur  of  false  standards 
and  wretched  ideas  of  success!  I  see  them,  the  precious 
youths  and  maidens,  going  in  by  thousands  to  his  den  of 
mean  aspirations,  and  not  a  hand  is  raised  to  warn  them. 
They  must  be  silly  and  tragic  because  everyone  else  is ! " 

Rankin  shook  his  head.  "  I  think  I'm  proving  that  you 
don't  have  to  go  into  the  labyrinth  —  that  you  can  live  in 
health  and  happiness  outside." 

"  There's  rather  more  than  that  to  be  done,  you'll  admit," 
said  the  doctor  with  an  uncompromising  bitterness. 

Rankin  colored.  "  I  don't  pretend  that  it's  much  of  any- 
thing—  what  I've  done." 

The  doctor  did  not  deny  him.  He  thrust  out  his  lips 
and  rubbed  his  hand  nervously  over  his  face.  Finally,  "  But 
you  have  done  it,  at  least,"  he  brought  out,  "  and  I've  only 
talked.  As  another  doctor  has  said :  '  I've  never  taken  a 
bribe;  but  there's  a  pale  shade  of  bribery  known  as  pros- 
perity.' " 

They  fell  into  a  silence,  broken  by  Mrs.  Sandworth's  ask- 
ing, "  Lydia,  have  your  folks  got  an  old  mythology  book  ? 


no  The  Squirrel-Cage 

I  studied  it  at  school,  of  course,  but  it  has  sort  of  passed  out 
of  my  mind.  Was  it  the  Minotaur  that  sowed  teeth  and 
something  else  very  odd  came  up  that  you  wouldn't  expect  ?  " 

Lydia  did  not  smile.  "  I  don't  know  whether  we  have  the 
book  or  not,  but  Miss  Slater  told  us  the  story  of  the  Mino- 
taur. There's  a  picture  of  Theseus  and  Ariadne  in  Europe 
somewhere  —  Munich,  I  think  —  or  maybe  Siena.  It  was 
where  one  of  the  girls  had  a  sore  throat,  I  remember,  and 
we  had  to  stay  quite  a  while.  Miss  Slater  told  us  about  it 
then." 

The  doctor  stood  up.  "Julia,  it's  nearly  half -past  now. 
Who  remembered  this  time  ?  I'm  off,  all  of  you.  Rankin, 
see  that  Lydia  gets  home  safely,  will  you?" 

"  Oh,  I  must  go  too  —  now,  with  you."  The  girl  jumped 
up.  "  I  didn't  realize  it  was  so  late.  They'll  be  wondering 
at  home." 

"  Come  along,  then,  both  of  you.  I'll  go  with  you  to  the 
corner  where  I  take  my  car." 

The  chill  of  the  night  air  sent  them  along  at  a  brisk  gait, 
Lydia  swinging  easily  between  them,  her  head  on  a  level 
with  Rankin's,  the  doctor's  hat  on  a  level  with  her  ear. 
She  said  nothing,  and  the  two  talked  across  her,  disjointed 
bits  of  an  argument  apparently  under  endless  discussion 
between  them. 

The  doctor  flung  down,  with  a  militant  despondency,  "  It'd 
be  no  use  trying  to  do  anything,  even  if  you  weren't  so  sloth- 
ful and  sedentary  as  you  are !  It  moves  in  a  vicious  circle. 
Because  material  success  is  what  the  majority  want,  the 
majority'll  go  on  wanting  it.  Hardy  says  somewhere  that 
it's  innate  in  human  nature  not  to  desire  the  undesired  of 
others." 

Rankin  sang  out  a  ringing  "  Aw,  g'wan !  It's  innate  in 
human  nature  to  murder  and  steal  whenever  it  pleases,  and 
I  guess  even  Hardy'd  admit  that  those  aren't  the  amusements 
of  the  majority  quite  so  extensively  as  they  used  to  be  — 
what  ?  First  thing  you  know  people'll  begin  to  desire  things 
because  they're  worth  desiring  and  not  because  other  folks 
have  them  —  even  so  astonishing  a  flight  as  that !  "  he  made 


Casus  Belli  in 

a  boyish  gesture  — "  and  what  a  grand  time  that'll  be  to  live 
in,  to  be  sure !  " 

They  were  waiting  at  the  corner  for  the  doctor's  street 
car,  which  now  came  noisily  down  toward  them.  He 
watched  it  advance,  and  proffered  as  a  valedictory,  his  gloom 
untempered  to  the  last,  "  You're  a  wild  man  that  lives  in  the 
woods.  I've  doctored  everybody  in  the  world  for  thirty 
years.  Which  knows  human  nature  best?  " 

Rankin  roared  after  him  defiantly,  waking  the  echoes  and 
startling  the  occupants  of  the  car,  "  I  do !  I  do !  I  do !  " 

The  car  bore  the  doctor  away,  a  perversely  melancholy 
little  figure,  contemplating  the  young  people  blackly. 

"  Whatever  do  you  suppose  set  him  off  so?  "  Rankin  won- 
dered aloud  as  they  resumed  their  rapid,  swinging  walk 
through  the  cold  air. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  did,"  Lydia  surmised.  "  I  had  a  wretched 
fit  of  the  blues,  and  I  guess  he  must  have  caught  them  from 
me." 

Rankin  looked  down  at  her  keenly,  his  thoughts  appar- 
ently quite  altered  by  her  phrase.  "  Ah,  he  worries  a  great 
deal  about  you,"  he  murmured. 

Lydia  laughed  nervously,  and  said  nothing.  They  walked 
swiftly  in  silence.  The  stars  were  thick  above  them  in  the 
wind-swept  autumn  night.  Lydia  tilted  her  head  to  look 
up  at  them  once  or  twice.  She  saw  Rankin's  face  pale  under 
the  shadow  of  his  broad-brimmed  hat,  his  eyes  meeting  hers 
in  an  intent  regard  like  a  wordless  speech.  The  fine,  cold, 
austere  wind  swept  them  along  like  leaves,  whipping  their 
young  pulses,  chanting  loudly  in  the  leafless  branches  of  the 
maples,  and  filling  the  dark  spaces  above  with  a  great  hum- 
ming roar.  They  thrilled  responsive  to  all  this  and  to  the 
mood  of  high  seriousness  each  divined  in  the  other. 

Lydia's  voice,  breaking  in  upon  the  intimate  silence,  con- 
tinued the  talk,  but  it  was  with  another  note.  The  mute 
interval,  filled  with  wind  and  darkness  and  the  light  of 
stars,  had  swung  them  up  to  a  higher  plane.  She  spoke 
with  an  artless  sureness  of  comprehension  —  a  certainty  — 
they  were  close  in  spirit  at  that  moment,  and  she  was  not 


112  The  Squirrel-Cage 

frightened,  not  even  conscious  of  it.  "  Why  should  the 
doctor  worry?  What  is  the  matter?  Marietta  says  the 
trouble  with  me  is  that  I'm  spoiled  with  having  everything 
that  I  want." 

"  Have  you  everything  you  want  ?  "  Rankin's  bluntness 
of  interrogation  was  unmitigated. 

Lydia  looked  up  at  him  swiftly,  keenly.  In  his  grave 
face  there  was  that  which  made  her  break  out  with  an  open 
quivering  emotion  she  had  not  shown  even  to  the  doctor's 
loving  heart.  "  It's  a  weight  on  my  very  soul  —  that  there's 
nothing  for  me  to  look  forward  to  —  nothing,  nothing  that's 
worth  growing  up  to  do.  I  haven't  been  taught  anything  — 
but  I  know  I  want  to  be  something  better  than  —  perhaps 
I  can't  be  —  but  I  want  to  try!  I  want  to  try!  That's 
not  much  to  ask  —  just  a  chance  to  try  —  But  I  don't  even 
know  how  to  get  that.  I  don't  even  dare  to  speak  of  — 
of  —  such  things.  People  laugh  and  say  it's  Sunday- 
schooley  fancies  that'll  disappear,  that  I'll  forget  as  I  get 
into  living.  But  I  don't  want  to  forget.  I'm  afraid  I  shall. 
I  want  to  keep  trying.  I  don't  know  — ' 

They  did  not  slacken  their  swift  advance  as  they  talked. 
They  looked  at  each  other  seriously  in  the  starlight. 

Rankin  had  given  an  indrawn  exclamation  as  she  finished, 
and  after  an  instant's  pause  he  said,  with  a  deep  emotion, 
"  Oh,  perhaps  —  at  least  we  both  want  to  try  —  Be  Ariadne 
for  me!  Help  me  to  find  the  clue  to  what's  wrong  in  our 
lives,  and  perhaps — "  He  looked  down  at  her,  shaken, 
drawing  quick  breaths.  She  answered  his  gaze  silently,  her 
face  as  shining  white  as  his. 

He  went  on :  "  You  shall  decide  what  Ariadne  may  be  or 
may  come  to  be  —  I  will  take  whatever  you  choose  to  give  — 
and  bless  you !  " 

She  had  a  gesture  of  humility.  "I  haven't  anything  to 
give." 

His  accent  was  memorable  as  he  cried,  "  You  have  your- 
self—  you  —  you!  But  you  are  too  gentle!  It  is  hard 
for  you  —  it  will  be  too  hard  for  you  to  do  what  you  feel 


Casus  Belli  113 

should  be  done.  I  could  perhaps  do  the  things  if  you  would 
tell  me  —  help  you  not  to  forget  —  not  to  let  life  make  you 
forget  what  is  worth  doing  and  learning ! " 

She  put  back  a  mesh  of  her  wind-blown  hair  to  look  at 
him  intently,  and  to  say  again  in  wonder,  "  I'm  not  anything. 
What  can  you  think  I  —  what  can  you  hope  — " 

They  were  standing  now  on  the  walk  before  her  father's 
house.  "  I  can  hope  — "  his  voice  shook,  "  I  can  hope  that 
you  may  make  me  into  a  man  worthy  to  help  you  to  be 
the  best  that's  in  you." 

Lydia  put  out  her  hand  impulsively.  It  did  not  tremble. 
She  looked  at  him  with  radiant,  steady  eyes.  He  raised  the 
slim,  gloved  fingers  to  his  lips.  "  Whether  to  leave  you,  or 
to  try  to  —  Oh,  I  would  give  my  life  to  know  h0w  best 
to  serve  you,"  he  said  huskily.  He  turned  away,  the  sound 
of  his  steps  ringing  loud  in  the  silent  street. 

Lydia  went  slowly  up  the  walk  and  into  the  empty  hall. 
She  stood  an  instant,  her  hands  clasped  before  her  breast, 
her  eyes  closed,  her  face  still  and  clear.  Then  she  moved 
upstairs  like  one  in  a  dream. 

As  she  passed  her  mother's  door  she  started  violently,  and 
for  an  instant  had  no  breath  to  answer.  Some  one  had  called 
her  name  laughingly. 

Finally,  "  Yes,"  she  answered  without  stirring. 

"  Oh,  come  in,  come  in ! "  cried  Marietta  mockingly. 
"  We  know  all  about  everything.  We  heard  you  come  up 
the  street,  and  saw  you  philandering  on  the  front  walk. 
And  for  all  it's  so  dark,  we  made  out  that  Paul  kissed  your 
hand  when  he  went  away." 

j  There  was  a  silence  in  the  hall.  Then  Lydia  appeared 
in  the  door.  Mrs.  Emery  gave  a  scream.  "  Why,  Lydia ! 
what  makes  you  look  so  queer  ?  " 

They  turned  startled,  inquiring,  daunting  faces  upon  her. 
It  was  the  baptism  of  fire  to  Lydia.  The  battle,  inevitable 
for  her,  had  begun.  She  faced  it ;  she  did  not  take  refuge 
in  the  safe,  silent  lie  which  opened  before  her,  but  her  cour- 
age was  a  piteous  one.  In  her  utter  heartsick  shrinking 


H4  The  Squirrel-Cage 

from  the  consequences  of  her  answer  she  had  a  premonition 
of  the  weakness  that  was  to  make  the  combat  so  unequal. 
"  It  was  not  Paul,"  she  said,  pale  in  the  doorway ;  "  it 
was  Daniel  Rankin." 


BOOK  II 
IN.  THE  LOCOMOTIVE  CAB 

CHAPTER  XI 
WHAT  IS  BEST  FOR  LYDIA 

THE  girls  who  were  to  be  debutantes  that  season,  the 
"  crowd  "  or  (more  accurately  to  quote  Madeleine  Hollister's 
racy  characterization)  "  the  gang,"  stood  before  Hallam's 
drug  store,  chattering  like  a  group  of  bright-colored  paro- 
quets. They  had  finished  three  or  four  ice-cream  sodas 
apiece,  and  now,  inimitably  unconscious  that  they  were  on 
the  street  corner,  they  were  "  getting  up  "  a  matinee  party 
for  the  performance  of  the  popular  actress  whom,  at  that 
time,  it  was  the  fashion  for  all  girls  of  their  age  and  condi- 
tion to  adore.  They  had  worked  themselves  up  to  a  state 
of  hysteric  excitement  over  the  prospect. 

A  tall  brown-eyed  blonde,  with  the  physical  development 
of  a  woman  and  the  facial  expression  of  a  child  of  twelve, 
cried  out,  "  I  feel  as  though  I  should  swoon  for  joy  to  see 
that  darling  way  she  holds  her  hands  when  the  leading  man's 
making  love  to  her  —  so  sort  of  helpless  —  like  this  — " 

"  Oh,  Madeleine,  that's  not  a  bit  the  way.     It's  so ! " 

The  first  speaker  protested,  "  Well,  I  guess  I  ought  to  be 
able  to  do  it.  I've  practiced  for  hours  in  front  of  the  glass 
doing  it." 

"  For  mercy's  sake  that's  nothing.  So  have  I.  Who 
hasn't?" 

Madeleine  referred  the  question  to  Lydia,  "  Lyd  has  seen 
her  later  than  anybody.  She  saw  her  in  London.  Just 
think  of  going  to  the  theater  in  London  —  as  if  it  was  any- 

"5 


n6  The  Squirrel-Cage 

where.     She   says   they're   crazy   about   her   over   there," 

"Oh,  wild!"  Lydia  told  them.  "Her  picture's  in  every 
single  window ! " 

"  Which  one?  Which  one?  "  they  clamored,  hanging  on 
her  answer  breathlessly. 

"  That  fascinating  one  with  the  rose,  where  she's  holding 
her  head  sideways  and  — "  Oh,  yes,  they  had  that  one,  their 
exclamation  cut  her  short,  relieved  that  their  collections  were 
complete. 

"  Lyd  met  a  woman  on  the  steamer  coming  back  whose 
sister-in-law  has  the  same  hairdresser,"  Madeleine  went  on. 

They  were  electrified.  "  Oh,  honestly?  Is  it  her  own?  " 
They  trembled  visibly  before  solution  of  a  problem  which 
had  puzzled  them,  as  they  would  have  said,  "  for  eterni- 
ties." 

"  Every  hair,"  Lydia  affirmed,  "  and  naturally  that  color." 

Their  enthusiasm  was  prodigious,  "  How  grand !  How 
perfectly  grand ! " 

They  turned  on  Lydia  with  reproaches.  "  Here  you've 
been  back  two  months  and  we  haven't  got  a  bit  of  good  out 
of  you.  Think  of  your  having  known  that,  all  this  — " 

"  Her  mother's  sick,  you  know,"  Madeleine  Hollister  ex- 
plained. 

"  She  hasn't  been  so  sick  but  what  Lydia  could  get  out 
to  go  buggy-riding  with  your  brother  Paul  ever  since  he  got 
back  this  last  time." 

Lydia,  as  though  she  wished  to  lose  herself,  had  been 
entering  with  a  feverish  intensity  into  the  spirit  of  their 
lively  chatter;  but  now,  instead  of  responding  with  some 
prompt,  defensive  flippancy,  she  colored  high  and  was  silent. 
A  clock  above  them  struck  five.  "  Oh,  I  must  get  on," 
she  cried ;  "  I'm  down  here,  you  know,  to  walk  home  with 
Father." 

They  laughed  loudly,  "  Oh,  yes,  we  know  all  about  this 
sudden  enthusiasm  for  Poppa's  society.  Where  are  you 
going  to  meet  Paul  ?  " 

Lydia  looked  about  at  the  crush  of  drays,  trolley-cars, 


What  Is  Best  for  Lydia  117 

and  delivery-wagons  jamming  the  busy  street,  "  Well,  not 
here  down-town,"  she  replied,  her  tone  one  of  satisfied 
security. 

A  confused  and  conscious  stir  among  her  companions  and 
a  burst  of  talk  from  them  cut  her  short.  They  cried  vari- 
ously, according  to  their  temperaments,  "  Oh,  there  he  comes 
now ! "  "I  think  it's  mean  Lydia's  gobbling  him  up  from 
under  our  noses !  "  "  I  used  to  have  a  ride  or  two  behind 
that  gray  while  Lydia  was  away ! "  "  My !  Isn't  he  a  good- 
looker!" 

They  had  all  turned  like  needles  to  the  north,  and  stared 
as  the  spider-light  wagon,  glistening  with  varnish,  bore  down 
on  them,  looking  singularly  distinguished  and  costly  among 
the  dingy  business-vehicles  which  made  up  the  traffic  of 
the  crowded  street.  The  young  driver  guided  the  high-step- 
ping gray  with  a  reckless,  competent  hand  through  the  most 
incredibly  narrow  openings  and  sent  his  vehicle  up  against 
the  flower-like  group  of  girls,  laughing  as  he  drew  rein, 
at  the  open,  humorous  outcry  against  him.  A  chorus  of 
eager  recrimination  rose  to  his  ears,  "  Now,  Mr.  Hollister, 
this  is  the  first  time  Lydia's  been  out  with  our  crowd  since 
she  came  home !  "  "  You  might  let  her  alone !  "  "  Go 
away,  Paul,  you  greedy  thing ! "  "I  haven't  asked  Lydia 
a  single  thing  about  her  European  trip ! " 

"  Well,  maybe  you  think,"  he  cried,  springing  out  to  the 
sidewalk,  "  that  I've  been  spending  the  last  year  traveling 
around  Europe  with  Lydia !  I  haven't  heard  any  more  than 
you  have."  He  threw  aside  the  lap-robe  of  supple  broad- 
cloth, and  offered  his  hand  to  Lydia.  A  flash  of  resent- 
ment at  the  cool  silence  of  this  invitation  sprang  up  in  the 
girl's  eyes.  There  was  in  her  face  a  despairing  effort  at 
mutiny.  Her  hands  nervously  opened  and  shut  the  clasp 
of  the  furs  at  her  throat.  She  tried  to  look  unconscious, 
to  look  like  the  other  girls,  to  laugh,  not  to  know  his  mean- 
ing, to  turn  away. 

The  young  man  plunged  straight  through  these  pitiful 
cobwebs.  "  Why,  come  on,  Lydia,"  he  cried  with  a  good- 
humored  pointedness,  "  I've  been  all  over  town  looking  for 


ii  8  The 'Squirrel-Cage 

you."  She  backed  away,  looking  over  her  shoulder,  as  if 
for  a  lane  of  escape,  flushing,  paling.  "  Oh,  no,  no  thank 
you,  Paul.  Not  this  afternoon ! "  she  cried  imploringly, 
with  a  soft  fury  of  protest,  "  I'm  on  my  way  to  Father's 
office.  I  want  to  walk  home  with  him.  I  want  to  see  him. 
I  thought  it  would  be  nice  to  walk  home  with  him. 
I  see  so  little  of  him !  I  thought  it  would  be  nice  to  walk 
home  with  him."  She  was  repeating  herself,  stammering 
and  uncertain,  but  achieving  nevertheless  a  steady  retreat 
from  the  confident  figure  standing  by  the  wagon. 

This  retreat  was  cut  short  by  his  next  speech.  "  Oh,  I've 
just  come  from  your  father.  I  went  to  his  office,  thinking 
you  might  be  there.  He  said  to  tell  you  and  your  mother 
that  he  won't  be  home  to  dinner  to-night  at  all.  He's  got 
some  citations  on  hand  he  has  to  verify." 

Lydia  had  stopped  her  actual  recoil  at  his  first  words  and 
now  stood  still,  but  she  still  tugged  at  the  invisible  chain 
which  held  her.  She  was  panting  a  little.  She  shook  her 
head.  "  Well  —  anyhow  —  I  want  to  see  him !  "  she  in- 
sisted with  a  transparently  aimless  obstinacy  like  a  frightened 
child's.  "  I  want  to  see  my  father."  Paul  laughed  easily, 
"  Well,  you'd  better  choose  some  other  time  if  you  want  to 
get  anything  out  of  him.  He  had  turned  everybody  out  and 
was  just  settling  to  work  with  a  pile  of  law-books  before 
him.  You  know  how  your  father  looks  under  those  cir- 
cumstances ! "  He  held  the  picture  up  to  her,  relentlessly 
smiling. 

Lydia's  lips  quivered,  but  she  said  nothing. 

Paul  went  on  soothingly,  "  I've  only  come  to  take  you 
straight  home,  anyhow.  Your  mother  wants  you.  She  said 
she  had  one  of  those  fainting  turns  again.  She  said  to  be 
sure  to  bring  you." 

At  the  mention  of  her  mother's  name,  Lydia  turned  quite 
pale.  She  began  to  walk  slowly  back  towards  the  wagon. 
There  was  angry,  helpless  misery  in  her  dark  eyes,  but  there 
was  no  longer  any  resistance.  "  Oh,  if  Mother  needs  me  — " 
she  murmured.  She  took  the  offered  hand,  stepped  into  the 


iWhat  Is  Best  for  Lydia  119 

wagon  and  even  went  through  some  fitful  pretense  of 
responding  to  the  chorus  of  facetious  good-bys  which  rose 
from  the  group  they  were  leaving. 

She  said  little  or  nothing  in  answer  to  the  young  man's 
kind,  cheerful  talk,  as  they  drove  along  one  main  thorough- 
fare after  another,  conspicuous  by  the  brilliant,  prosperous 
beauty  of  their  well-fed  youth  and  their  handsome  garb, 
pointed  out  by  people  on  the  sidewalks,  constantly  nodding 
in  response  to  greetings  from  acquaintances.  Lydia  flushed 
deeply  at  the  first  of  these  salutations,  a  flush  which  grew 
deeper  and  deeper  as  these  features  of  their  processional 
advance  repeated  themselves.  She  put  her  hand  to  her 
throat  from  time  to  time  as  though  it  ached  and  when 
the  red  rubber-tired  wheels  turned  noiselessly  in  on  the 
asphalt  of  her  home  street,  she  threw  the  lap-robe  brusquely 
back  from  her  knees  as  though  for  an  instant  escape. 

The  young  man's  pleasant  chat  stopped.  "  Look  here, 
Lydia,"  he  said  in  another  tone,  one  that  forced  her  eyes 
to  meet  his,  "  look  here,  don't  you  forget  one  thing !  "  His 
voice  was  deep  with  the  sincerest  sympathy,  his  eyes  full 
of  emotion,  "  Don't  you  forget,  little  Lydia,  that  nobody's 
sorrier  for  you  than  I  am!  And  I  don't  want  anything 
that  — "  he  cried  out  in  sudden  passion  — "  Good  Lord,  I'd 
be  cut  to  bits  before  I'd  even  want  anything  that  wasn't 
best  for  you !  "  He  looked  away  and  mastered  himself  again 
to  quiet  friendliness,  "  You  know  that,  don't  you,  Lydia  ? 
You  know  that  all  I  want  is  for  you  to  have  the  most  suc- 
cessful life  anyone  can?" 

He  leaned  to  her  imploring  in  his  turn. 

She  drew  a  quick  breath,  and  moved  her  head  from  side 
to  side  restlessly.  Then  drawn  by  the  steady  insistence  of 
his  eyes,  she  said,  as  if  touched  by  his  patient,  determined 
kindness,  "  Oh,  yes,  yes,  Paul,  I  realize  how  awfully  good 
you're  being  to  me !  I  wish  I  could  —  but  —  yes,  of  course 
I  see  how  good  you  are  to  me ! " 

He  laid  his  hand  an  instant  over  hers,  withdrawing  it 
before  she  herself  could  make  the  action.  "  It  makes  me 


I2O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

happy  to  have  you  know  I  want  to  be,"  he  said  simply, 
"  now  that's  all.  You  needn't  be  afraid.  I  shan't  bother 
you." 

They  were  in  front  of  the  Emery  house  now.  He  did  not 
try  to  detain  her  longer.  He  helped  her  down,  only  repeat- 
ing as  she  gave  him  her  gloved  hand  an  instant,  "  That's 
what  I'm  for  —  to  be  good  to  you." 

The  wagon  drove  off,  the  young  man  refraining  from  so 
much  as  a  backward  glance. 

The  girl  turned  to  the  house  and  stood  a  moment,  open- 
ing and  shutting  her  hands.  When  she  moved,  it  was  to 
walk  so  rapidly  as  almost  to  run  up  the  walk,  up  the  steps, 
into  the  hall  and  into  her  mother's  presence,  where,  still 
on  the  crest  of  the  wave  of  her  resolution,  she  cried, 
"  Mother,  did  you  really  send  Paul  for  me  again.  Did  you 
really?" 

"  Why,  yes,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Emery,  surprised,  sitting  up 
on  the  sofa  with  an  obvious  effort ;  "  did  somebody  say  I 
didn't?" 

"  I  hoped  you  didn't ! "  cried  Lydia  bitterly ;  "  it  was  — 
horrid !  I  was  out  with  all  the  girls  in  front  of  Hallam's  — 
everybody  was  so  —  they  all  laughed  so  when  —  they  looked 
at  me  so !  " 

Mrs.  Emery  spoke  with  dignity,  "  Naturally  I  couldn't 
know  where  he  would  find  you." 

"  But,  Mother,  you  did  know  that  every  afternoon  for 
two  weeks  you've  —  it's  been  managed  so  that  I've  been 
out  with  Paul." 

Mrs.  Emery  ignored  this  and  went  on  plaintively,  "  I 
didn't  see  that  it  was  so  unreasonable  for  an  invalid  to 
send  whoever  she  could  find  after  her  only  daughter  because 
she  was  feeling  worse." 

Lydia's  frenzy  carried  her  at  once  straight  to  the  exag- 
geration which  is  the  sure  forerunner  of  defeat  in  the  sort 
of  a  conflict  which  was  engaging  her.  "Are  you  feeling 
any  worse  ?  "  she  cried  in  a  despairing  incredulity  which  was 
instantly  marked  as  inhumanly  unfilial  by  the  scared  revul- 
sion on  her  face  as  well  as  Mrs.  Emery's  pale  glare  of 


What  Is  Best  for  Lydia  121 

horror.  "  Oh,  I  didn't  mean  that ! "  she  cried,  running  to 
her  mother ;  "  I'm  sorry,  Mother !  I'm  sorry !  " 

The  tears  began  running  down  Mrs.  Emery's  cheeks,  "  I 
don't  know  my  little  Lydia  any  more,"  she  said  weakly, 
dropping  her  head  back  on  the  pillow. 

"  I  don't  know  myself ! "  cried  Lydia,  sobbing  violently, 
"  I'm  so  unhappy !  " 

Mrs.  Emery  took  her  in  her  arms  with  a  forgiveness  which 
dropped  like  a  noose  over  Lydia's  neck,  "  There,  there, 
darling !  Mother  knows  you  didn't  mean  it !  But  you  must 
remember,  Lydia  dearest,  if  you're  unhappy  these  days,  so 
is  your  poor  mother." 

"  I'm  making  you  so !  "  sobbed  Lydia,  "  I  know  it !  some- 
thing like  this  happens  every  day !  It's  why  you  don't  get 
well  faster !  I'm  making  you  unhappy !  " 

"  It  doesn't  make  any  difference  about  me !  "  Mrs.  Emery 
heroically  assured  her,  "  I  don't  want  you  to  be  influenced 
by  thinking  about  my  feelings,  Lydia.  Above  everything  in 
the  world,  I  don't  want  you  to  feel  the  slightest  pressure 
from  me  —  or  any  one  of  the  family.  Oh,  darling,  all  I 
want  —  all  any  of  us  want,  is  what  is  best  for  our  little 
Lydia  1" 


CHAPTER  XH 
A  SOP  TO  THE  WOLVES 

Six  o'clock  had  struck  when  Mrs.  Sandworth  came  wearily 
back  from  her  Christmas  shopping.  It  was  only  the  middle 
of  November,  but  each  year  she  began  her  preparations  for 
that  day  of  rejoicing  earlier  and  earlier,  in  a  vain  at- 
tempt to  avoid  some  of  the  embittering  desolation  of  con- 
fusion and  fatigue  which  for  her,  as  for  all  her  acquaint- 
ances, marked  the  December  festival.  She  let  herself 
down  heavily  from  the  trolley-car  which  had  brought  her 
from  the  business  part  of  Kndbury  back  to  what  was 
known  as  the  "  residential  section,"  a  name  bestowed  on 
it  to  the  exclusion  of  several  other  much  larger  divisions 
of  town  devoted  exclusively  to  the  small  brick  buildings 
blackened  by  coal  smoke  in  which  ordinary  people  lived. 

As  she  walked  slowly  up  the  street,  her  arms  were  full 
of  bundles,  her  heart  full  of  an  ardent  prayer  that  she 
might  find  her  brother  either  out  or  in  a  peaceable  mood. 
She  loved  and  admired  Dr.  Melton  more  than  anyone  else 
in  the  world,  but  there  were  moments  when  the  sum  total 
of  her  conviction  about  him  was  an  admission  that  his 
was  not  a  reposeful  personality.  For  the  last  fortnight, 
this  peculiarity  had  been  accentuated  till  Mrs.  Sandworth's 
loyalty  had  cracked  at  every  seam  in  order  not  to  find 
him  intolerable  to  live  with.  Moreover,  her  own  kind 
heart  and  intense  partiality  for  peace  in  all  things  had 
suffered  acutely  from  the  same  suspense  that  had  wrought 
the  doctor  to  his  wretched  fever  of  anxiety.  It  had  been 
a  time  of  torment  for  everybody  —  everybody  was  agreed 
on  that;  and  Mrs.  Sandworth  had  felt  that  life  in  the  same 
house  with  Lydia's  godfather  had  given  her  more  than 
her  share  of  misery. 

122 


A  Sop  to  the  .Wolves  123 

On  this  dark  November  evening  she  was  so  tired  that 
every  inch  of  her  soft  plumpness  ached.  She  had  not 
prospered  in  her  shopping.  Things  had  not  matched. 
She  let  herself  into  the  front  door  with  a  sigh  of  relief 
at  finding  the  hall  empty.  She  looked  cautiously  into  the 
doctor's  study  and  drew  a  long  breath,  peeped  into  the 
parlor  and,  almost  smiling,  went  on  cheerfully  upstairs 
to  her  room.  From  afar,  she  saw  the  welcoming  flicker 
of  the  coal  fire  in  her  grate,  and  felt  a  glow  of  surprised 
gratitude  to  the  latest  transient  from  the  employment 
agency  who  was  now  occupying  her  kitchen.  She  did  not 
often  get  one  that  was  thoughtful  about  keeping  up  fires 
when  nobody  was  at  home.  It  would  be  delicious  to  get 
off  her  corset  and  shoes,  let  down  her  hair  —  there  he 
was,  bolt  upright  before  the  fire,  his  back  to  the  door. 
She  took  in  the  significance  of  his  tense  attitude  and  pre- 
pared herself  for  the  worst,  sinking  into  a  chair,  letting 
her  bundles  slide  at  various  tangents  from  her  rounded 
surface,  and  surveying  her  brother  with  the  utmost  un- 
resignation.  "  Well,  what  is  it  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  had  not  heard  her  enter,  and  now  flashed  around, 
casting  in  her  face  like  a  hard-thrown  missile,  "  Lydia's 
engaged." 

All  Mrs.  Sandworth's  lassitude  vanished.  She  flung 
herself  on  him  in  a  wild  outcry  of  inquiry — "Which  one? 
Which  one?" 

He  answered  her  angrily,  "  Which  do  you  suppose  ? 
Doesn't  a  steam-roller  make  some  impression  on  a  rose  ?  " 

"  Oh ! "  she  cried,  enlightened ;  and  then,  with  wide- 
spread solemnity,  "  Well,  think  —  of  —  that !  " 

"  Not  if  I  can  help  it,"  groaned  the  doctor. 

"  But  that's  not  fair,"  his  sister  protested  a  moment  later 
as  she  took  in  the  rest  of  his  speech. 

"  Heaven  knows  it's  not,"  he  agreed  bitterly. 

She  stared.  "  I  mean  that  Paul  hasn't  been  nearly  so 
steam-rollery  as  usual." 

The  doctor  rubbed  his  face  furiously,  as  though  to 
brush  off  a  disagreeable  clinging  web.  "  He  hasn't  had 


124  The  Squirrel-Cage 

to  be.  There  have  been  plenty  of  other  forces  to  do  his 
rolling  for  him." 

"If  you  mean  her  father  —  you  know  he's  kept  his 
hands  off  religiously." 

"  He  has  that,  damn  him !  "  The  doctor  raged  about  the 
room. 

A  silent  prayer  for  patience  wrote  itself  on  Mrs.  Sand- 
worth's  face.  "  You're  just  as  inconsistent  as  you  can  be  I " 
she  cried. 

"  I'm  more  than  that,"  he  sighed,  sitting  down  suddenly 
on  a  chair  in  the  corner  of  the  room ;  "  I'm  heartsick."  He 
shivered,  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and  surveyed 
his  shoes  gloomily. 

One  of  Mrs.  Sandworth's  cheerful  capacities  was  for 
continuing  tranquilly  the  minute  processes  of  everyday 
life  through  every  disturbance  in  the  region  of  the  emo- 
tions. You  had  to,  she  said,  to  get  them  done  —  any- 
body that  lived  with  the  doctor.  She  now  took  advantage 
of  his  silence  to  count  over  her  packages,  remove  her 
wraps,  loosen  a  couple  of  hooks  at  her  waist  and  fluff  up 
the  roll  of  graying  hair  over  her  forehead.  The  doctor 
looked  at  her. 

She  answered  him  reasonably,  "  It  wouldn't  help  Lydia 
any  if  I  took  it  off  and  threw  it  in  the  fire,  would  it?  It's 
my  best  one,  too;  the  other's  at  the  hairdresser's,  getting 
curled." 

"  It's  not,"  the  doctor  broke  out  — "  it's  not,  Heaven  be 
my  judge!  that  /  want  to  settle  it.  But  I  did  want  Lydia 
to  settle  it  herself." 

"  She  has,  at  last,"  Mrs.  Sandworth  reminded  him,  in  a 
little  surprise  at  his  forgetting  so  important  a  fact. 

"  She  has  not! "  roared  the  doctor. 

His  literal-minded  sister  looked  aggrieved  bewilderment. 
She  felt  a  bitterness  at  having  been  stirred  without  due 
cause.  "  Marius,  you're  unkind.  What  did  you  tell  me 
she  had  for  —  when  I'm  so  tired  it  seems  as  if  I  could 
lie  down  and  die  if  I  — " 

Dr.  Melton  knew  his  sister.     He  made  a  rapid  plunge 


A  Sop  to  the  Wolves  125 

through  the  obscurity  of  her  brain  into  her  heart's  warm 
clarity,  and,  "  Oh,  Julia,  if  you  had  seen  her !  "  he  cried. 

She  leaned  toward  him,  responsive  to  the  emotion  in  his 
voice.  "  Tell  me  about  it,  poor  Marius,"  she  said,  yearning 
maternally  over  his  pain. 

"  I  can't  —  if  you  had  seen  her  — " 

"  But  how  did  you  hear  ?  Did  she  tell  you  ?  When 
did—" 

"  I  was  there  at  five,  and  her  mother  met  me  at  the 
door.  She  took  me  upstairs,  a  finger  on  her  lip,  and  there 
she  and  Marietta  said  they  guessed  this  afternoon  would 
settle  things.  A  week  ago,  she  said,  she'd  had  an  up- 
and-down  talk  with  that  dreadful  carpenter  and  as  good 
as  forbade  him  the  house  — " 

Mrs.  Sandworth  had  a  gesture  of  intuition.  "  Oh,  if 
they've  managed  to  shut  Lydia  off  from  seeing  him  — " 

The  doctor  nodded.  "  That's  what  her  mother  counted 
on.  She  said  she  thought  it  a  sign  that  Lydia  was  just 
infatuated  with  Rankin  —  her  being  so  different  after 
she'd  seen  him  —  so  defiant  —  so  unlike  Lydia!  But  now 
she  hadn't  seen  him  for  a  week,  and  her  mother  and  Mari- 
etta had  been  '  talking  to  her ' —  'Julia !  —  and  then  Paul 
had  come  to  see  her  every  evening,  and  had  been  just 
right  —  firm  and  yet  not  exacting,  and  ever  so  gentle  and 
kind  —  and  this  afternoon  when  he  came  Lydia  cried  and 
didn't  want  to  go  down,  but  her  mother  said  she  mustn't  be 
childish,  and  Marietta  had  just  taken  her  right  down  to 
the  library  and  left  her  there  with  Paul,  and  there  she 
was  now."  The  doctor  started  up  and  beat  his  thin, 
corded  hand  on  the  mantel.  He  could  not  speak.  His 
sister  got  up  and  laid  a  tender  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
"  Poor  Marius !  "  she  said  again. 

He  drew  a  long  breath.     "  I  did  not  fly  at  their  throats 

—  I  turned  and  ran  like  mad  down  the  stairs  and  into 
the  library.     It  was  Rankin  I  wanted  to  kill   for  letting 
his  pride  come  in  —  for  leaving  her  there  alone  with  those 

—  I  was  ready  to  snatch  Lydia  up  bodily  and  carry  her  off 
to  — "    He  stopped  short  and  laughed  harshly,     "  I  reach 


126  The  Squirrel-Cage 

to  Lydia's  shoulder,"  he  commented  on  his  own  speech. 
"  That's  me.  To  see  what's  to  be  done  and  — " 

"  What  was  to  be  done  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Sandworth 
patiently.  She  was  quite  used  to  understanding  but  half 
of  what  her  brother  said  and  had  acquired  a  quiet  art  of 
untangling  by  tireless  questionings  the  thread  of  narrative 
from  the  maze  of  his  comments  and  ejaculations. 

"  There  was  nothing  to  be  done.     I  was  too  late." 

"  You  didn't  burst  in  on  them,  while  Paul  was  kissing  her 
or  anything,  did  you  ? " 

"  Paul  wasn't  there." 

"  Not  there !  Why,  Marius,  you're  worse  than  usual. 
Didn't  you  tell  me  her  mother  said  — " 

"  He  had  been  there  —  one  look  at  Lydia  showed  that. 
She  sat  there  alone  in  the  dim  light,  her  face  as  white  — 
and  when  I  came  in  she  said,  without  looking  to  see  who 
it  was,  *  I'm  engaged  to  Paul.'  She  said  it  to  her  mother, 
who  was  right  after  me,  of  course,  and  then  to  Marietta." 

"  Well  —  ! "  breathed  Mrs.  Sandworth  as  he  paused ; 
"  so  that  was  all  there  was  to  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no ;  they  did  the  proper  thing.  They  kissed  her, 
and  cried,  and  congratulated  everybody,  and  her  mother 
said,  with  an  eye  on  me :  '  Darling,  you're  not  doing 
this  just  because  you  know  it'll  make  us  so  very  happy, 
are  you  ? '  Lydia  said,  '  Oh,  no ;  she  supposed  not,'  and 
started  to  go  upstairs.  But  when  Marietta  said  she'd  go 
and  telephone  to  Flora  Burgess  to  announce  it,  Lydia  came 
down  like  a  flash.  It  was  not  to  be  announced  she  told 
them;  she'd  die  if  they  told  anybody!  Paul  had  promised 
solemnly  not  to  tell  anybody.  Her  mother  said,  of  course 
she  knew  how  Lydia  felt  about  it.  It  was  a  handicap  for 
a  girl  in  her  first  season.  Lydia  was  half-way  up  the  stairs 
again,  but  at  that  she  looked  down  at  her  mother  —  God! 
Julia,  if  a  child  of  mine  had  ever  looked  at  me  like  that  — " 

Mrs.  Sandworth  patted  him  vaguely.  "  Oh,  people 
always  look  white  and  queer  in  the  twilight,  you  know  — 
even  quite  florid  complexions." 

The  doctor  made  a  rush  to  the  door. 


A  Sop  to  the  Wolves  127 

"  But  dinner  must  be  ready  to  put  on  the  table,"  she  called 
after  him. 

"  Put  it  on,  then,"  he  cried,  and  disappeared. 

A  plain  statement  was  manna  to  Mrs.  Sandworth.  She 
had  finished  her  soup,  and  was  beginning  on  her  hamburg 
steak  when  the  doctor  came  soberly  in,  took  his  place,  and 
began  to  eat  in  silence.  She  took  up  the  conversation 
where  they  had  left  it. 

"  So  it's  all  over,"  she  commented,  watching  his  plate  to 
see  that  he  did  not  forget  to  salt  his  meat  and  help  himself 
to  gravy. 

"  Nothing's  ever  over  in  a  human  life,"  he  contradicted 
her.  "  Why  do  you  suppose  she  doesn't  want  it  an- 
nounced ?  " 

"  You  don't  suppose  she  means  to  break  it  off  later  ?  " 

"  I  haven't  any  idea  what  she  means,  any  more  than  she 
has,  poor  child!  But  it's  plain  that  this  is  only  to  gain 
time  —  a  sop  to  the  wolves." 

"  Wolves !  "  cried  poor  Mrs.  Sandworth. 

"  Well,  tigers  and  hyenas,  perhaps,"  he  added  moder- 
ately. 

"  They're  crazy  about  Lydia,  that  whole  Emery  family," 
she  protested. 

"  They  are  that/'  he  agreed  sardonically.  "  But  I  don't 
mean  only  her  family.  I  mean  unclean  prowling  standards 
of  what's  what,  as  well  as  — " 

"  They'd  lie  down  and  let  her  walk  over  them !  You 
know  they  would  — " 

"If  they  thought  she  was  going  in  the  right  direction." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  gave  him  up,  and  drifted  off  into  specu- 
lation. "  I  wonder  what  she  could  have  found  in  that  man 
to  think  of !  A  girl  brought  up  as  she's  been !  " 

"  Perhaps  she  was  only  snatching  a  little  sensible  talk 
where  she  could  get  it." 

"  But  they  didn't  talk  sensibly.  Marietta  said  Lydia 
tried,  one  of  the  times  when  they  were  going  over  it  with 
her,  Lydia  tried  to  tell  her  mother  some  of  the  things  they 
said  that  night  when  he  took  her  home  from  here.  Mari- 


128  The  Squirrel-Cage 

etta  said  they  were  '  too  sickish ! '  '  Flat  Sunday-school 
cant  about  wanting  to  be  good/  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  That  certainly  wouldn't  have  tempted  Marietta  from 
the  path  of  virtue  and  sharp  attention  to  a  good  match," 
murmured  the  doctor.  "  Nobody  can  claim  that  there's 
anything  very  seductive  to  the  average  young  lady  in  Ran- 
kin's  fanaticism." 

"  Oh,  you  admit  he's  a  fanatic ! "  Mrs.  Sandworth 
seized  on  a  valuable  piece  of  driftwood  which  the  doctor's 
tempest  had  thrown  at  her  feet. 

"  Everybody  who's  worth  his  salt  is  a  fanatic." 

"  Not  Paul.  Everybody  says  he's  so  sane  and  level- 
headed." 

"  There  isn't  a  hotter  one  in  creation !  " 

"TbanPautf" 

"  Than  Paul." 

"  Oh,  Marius !  "  she  reproached  him  for  levity. 

"  He's  a  fanatic  for  success." 

"Oh,  I  don't  call  that  — " 

"  Nor  nobody  else  in  Endbury  —  but  it  is,  all  the  same. 
And  the  only  wonder  is  that  Lydia  should  have  been  at- 
tracted by  Rankin's  heretical  brand  and  not  by  Paul's 
orthodox  variety.  It  shows  she's  rare." 

"  Good  gracious,  Marius !  You  talk  as  though  it  were 
a  question  of  ideas  or  convictions." 

"  That's  a  horrible  conception,"  he  admitted  gravely. 

"  It's  which  one  she's  in  love  with ! "  Mrs.  Sandworth 
emitted  this  with  solemnity. 

The  doctor  stood  up  to  go.  "  She's  not  in  love  with 
either,"  he  pronounced.  "  She's  never  been  allowed  the 
faintest  sniff  at  reality  or  life  or  experience  —  how  can 
she  be  in  love  ?  " 

"  Well,  they're  in  love  with  her,"  she  triumphed  for  her 
sex. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  Paul's  inner  workings, 
and  as  for  Rankin,  I  don't  know  whether  he's  in  love  with 
her  or  not.  He's  sorry  for  her  —  he's  touched  by  her  — " 

Mrs.  Sandworth  felt  the  ground  slip  from  beneath  her 


A  Sop  to  the  Wolves  129 

feet.  "  Good  gracious  me !  If  he's  not  in  love  with  her, 
nor  she  with  him,  what  are  you  making  all  this  fuss 
about?" 

The  doctor  thrust  out  his  lips.  "  I'm  only  protesting  in 
my  usual  feeble,  inadequate  manner,  after  trie  harm's  all 
done,  at  idiots  and  egotists  laying  their  dirty  hands  on  a 
sacred  thing  —  the  right  of  youth  to  its  own  life — " 

"Well,  if  you  call  that  a  feeble  protest—  I"  she  called 
after  him. 

He  reappeared,  hat  in  hand.  "  It's  nothing  to  what  I'd 
like  to  say.  I  will  add  that  Daniel  Rankin's  a  man  in  a 
million." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  responded,  rather  neatly  for  her,  that 
she  should  hope  so  indeed,  and  added,  "  But,  Marius,  she 
couldn't  have  married  him  —  really !  Mercy !  What  had 
he  to  offer  her  —  compared  with  Paul?  Everybody  has 
always  said  what  a  suitable  marriage  — " 

Dr.  Melton  crammed  his  hat  on  his  head  fiercely  and  said 
nothing. 

"  But  it's  so,"  she  insisted. 

"  He  hasn't  anything  to  offer  to  Marietta,  perhaps." 

"  Marietta's  married! "  Mrs.  Sandworth  kept  herself 
anchored  fast  to  the  facts  of  any  case  under  discussion. 

"Is  she?  "  queried  the  doctor  with  a  sincerity  of  interro- 
gation which  his  sister  found  distracting. 

"  Oh,  Marius ! "  she  reproached  him  again ;  and  then 
helplessly,  "  How  did  we  get  on  to  Marietta,  anyhow  ?  I 
thought  we  were  talking  of  Lydia's  engagement." 

"  I  was,"  he  assured  her. 

"  And  I  was  going  to  ask  you  really  seriously,  just  straight* 
out,  what  you  are  so  down  on  the  Emerys  for  ?  What  have 
they  done  that's  so  bad  ?  " 

"  They've  brought  her  up  so  that  now  in  her  time  of 
need  she  hasn't  a  weapon  to  resist  them." 

"  Oh,  Ma  — "  began  Mrs.  Sandworth  despairingly. 

"  Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you  —  I'll  explain  in  words  of 
one  syllable.  Mind  you,  I  don't  undertake  to  settle  the 
question  —  Heaven  forbid!  It  may  be  all  right  for  Mari- 


130  The  Squirrel-Cage 

etta  Mortimer  to  kill  herself  body  and  soul  by  inches  to 
keep  what  bores  her  to  death  to  have  —  a  social  position 
in  Endbury's  two-for-a-cent  society,  but,  for  the  Lord's 
sake,  why  do  they  make  such  a  howling  and  yelling  just 
at  the  time  when  Lydia's  got  the  tragically  important  ques- 
tion to  decide  as  to  whether  that's  what  she  wants?  It's 
like  expecting  her  to  do  a  problem  in  calculus  in  the  midst 
of  an  earthquake." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  had  a  mortal  antipathy  to  figures  of 
speech,  acquired  of  much  painful  experience  with  her 
brother's  conversation.  She  sank  back  in  her  chair  and 
waved  him  off.  "  Calculus !  "  she  cried,  outraged ;  "  earth- 
quakes !  And  I'm  sure  you're  as  unfair  as  can  be !  You 
can't  say  her  father's  obscured  any  question.  You  know 
he's  not  a  dictatorial  father.  His  principle  is  not  to  inter- 
fere at  all  with  his  children." 

"  Yes ;  that's  his  principle  all  right.  His  specialties  are 
in  other  lines,  and  they  have  been  for  a  long  time.  His 
wife  has  seen  to  that." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  had  one  of  her  lucid  divinations  of  the 
inner  meaning  of  a  situation.  "  Oh,  the  poor  Emerys ! 
Poor  Lydia!  Oh,  Marius,  aren't  you  glad  we  haven't  any 
children ! " 

"  Every  child  that's  not  getting  a  fair  chance  at  what  it 
ought  to  have,  should  be  our  child,"  he  said. 

He  went  up  to  her  and  kissed  her  gently.  "  Good-night," 
he  said. 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

"  To  the  Black  Rock  woods." 

"  Tell  him  —  "  she  was  inspired  — "  tell  him  to  try  to  see 
Lydia  again." 

"  I  was  going  to  do  that.  But  she  won't  be  allowed  to. 
It's  pretty  late  now.  She  ought  to  have  seen  him  a  great 
many  years  ago  —  from  the  time  he  was  born." 

"  But  she's  ever  so  much  younger  than  he,"  cried  Mrs, 
Sandworth  after  him,  informingly. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
LYDIA  DECIDES  IN  PERFECT  FREEDOM 

THE  maid  had  announced  to  Mrs.  Emery,  finishing  an 
unusually  careful  morning  toilet,  that  Miss  Burgess, 
society  reporter  of  the  Endbury  Chronicle,  was  below. 
Before  the  mistress  of  the  house  could  finish  adjusting  her 
well-matched  gray  pompadour,  a  second  arrival  was 
heralded,  "  The  gentleman  from  the  greenhouse,  to  see 
about  Miss  Lydia's  party  decorations."  And  as  the  hand- 
some matron  came  down  the  stairs  a  third  comer  was  in- 
troduced into  the  hall  —  Mme.  Boyle  herself,  the  best 
dressmaker  in  town,  who  had  come  in  person  to  see  about 
the  refitting  of  the  debutante's  Paris  dresses,  the  debutante 
having  found  the  change  back  to  the  climate  of  Endbury 
so  trying  that  her  figure  had  grown  quite  noticeably  thinner. 

"  It  was  the  one  thing  necessary  to  make  Maddem- 
waselle's  tournoor  exactly  perfect,"  Mme.  Boyle  told  Mrs. 
Emery.  Out  of  a  sense  of  what  was  due  her  loyal  Endbury 
customers,  Mme.  Boyle  assumed  a  guileless  coloring  of 
Frenchiness,  which  was  evidently  a  symbol,  and  no  more 
intended  for  a  pretense  of  reality  than  the  honestly  false 
brown  front  that  surmounted  her  competent,  kindly  Celtic 
face. 

Mrs.  Emery  stopped  a  moment  by  the  newel-post  to 
direct  Madame  to  Lydia's  room  and  to  offer  up  a  devout 
thanksgiving  to  the  kindly  Providence  that  constantly 
smoothed  the  path  before  her.  "  Oh,  Madame,  just  think 
if  it  had  been  a  season  when  hips  were  in  style !  "  As  she 
continued  her  progress  to  what  she  was  beginning  to  con- 
template calling  her  drawing-room,  she  glowed  with  a  sense 
of  well-being  which  buoyed  her  up  like  wings.  In  com- 

131 


132  The  Squirrel-Cage 

mon  with  many  other  estimable  people,  she  could  not  but 
value  more  highly  what  she  had  had  to  struggle  to  retain, 
and  the  exciting  vicissitudes  of  the  last  fortnight  had  left 
her  with  a  sweet  taste  of  victory  in  her  mouth. 

She  greeted  Miss  Burgess  with  the  careful  cordiality  due 
to  an  ally  of  many  years'  standing,  and  with  a  manner  per- 
ceptibly but  indefinably  different  from  that  which  she 
would  have  bestowed  on  a  social  equal.  Mrs.  Emery  had 
labored  to  acquire  exactly  that  tone  in  her  dealings  with 
the  society  reporter,  and  her  achievement  of  it  was  a  fact 
which  brought  an  equal  satisfaction  to  both  women.  Miss 
Burgess'  mother  was  an  Englishwoman,  an  ex-housekeeper, 
who  had  transmitted  to  her  daughter  a  sense,  rare  as  yet 
in  America,  of  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  class  distinctions. 
In  her  turn  Miss  Burgess  herself,  the  hard-working,  good- 
natured  woman  of  fifty  who  for  twenty  years  had  reported 
the  doings  of  those  citizens  of  Endbury  whom  she  con- 
sidered the  "  gentry,"  had  toiled  with  the  utmost  disinter- 
estedness to  build  up  a  feeling,  or,  as  she  called  it,  a 
"  tone,"  which,  among  other  things,  should  exclude  her 
from  equality.  When  she  began  she  was,  perhaps,  the 
only  person  in  town  who  had  an  unerring  instinct  for  social 
differences ;  but,  like  a  kindly,  experienced  actor  of  a  minor 
role  in  theatricals,  she  had  silently  given  so  many  profes- 
sional tips  to  the  amateur  principals  in  the  play,  and  had 
acted  her  own  part  with  such  unflagging  consistency  and 
good-will,  that  she  had  often  now  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  one  of  her  pupils  move  through  her  role  with  a 
most  edifying  effect  of  having  been  born  to  it. 

Long  ago  she  had  taken  the  Emerys  to  her  warm  heart 
and  she  had  rejoiced  in  all  their  upward  progress  with  the 
sweet  unenvious  joy  of  an  ugly  woman  in  a  pretty,  much- 
loved  sister's  successes.  Lydia  was  to  her,  as  to  Mrs. 
Emery,  a  bright  symbol  of  what  she  would  fain  have  been 
herself.  Miss  Burgess'  feeling  for  her  somewhat  re- 
sembled that  devout  affection  which,  she  had  read,  was  felt 
by  faithful  old  servants  of  great  English  families  for  the 
young  ladies  of  the  house.  The  pathetic  completeness  of 


Lydia  Decides  in  Perfect  Freedom      133 

her  own  insignificance  of  aspect  had  spared  her  any  un- 
easy ambitions  for  personal  advancement,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  vigor  of  her  character  and  her  pleasure 
in  industry  were  such  that  she  had  been  happier  in  her 
daily  column  and  weekly  five-column  Society  Notes  than 
if  she  had  been  as  successful  a  society  matron  as  Mrs. 
Emery  herself. 

She  lived  the  life  of  a  creator,  working  at  an  art  she 
had  invented,  in  a  workroom  of  her  own  contriving,  loy- 
ally drawing  the  shutters  to  shade  an  unfortunate  occur- 
rence in  one  of  the  best  families,  setting  forth  a  partial 
success  with  its  best  profile  to  the  public,  and  flooding  with 
light  real  achievements  like  Mrs.  Hollister's  rose  party 
(the  Mrs.  Hollister  —  Paul's  aunt,  and  Madeleine's).  All 
that  she  wrote  was  read  by  nearly  every  woman  in  End- 
bury.  She  was  a  person  of  importance,  and  a  very  busy 
and  happy  old  maid. 

Mrs.  Emery  had  a  great  taste  for  Miss  Burgess'  con- 
versation, admiring  greatly  her  whole-hearted  devotion  to 
Endbury's  social  welfare.  She  had  once  said  of  her  to 
Dr.  Melton,  "  There  is  what  /  call  a  public-spirited  woman." 
He  had  answered,  "  I  envy  Flora  Burgess  with  the  fierce 
embittered  envy  I  feel  for  a  cow  " —  an  ambiguous  com- 
pliment which  Mrs.  Emery  had  resented  on  behalf  of  her 
old  ally. 

Now,  as  Mrs.  Emery  added  to  her  greeting,  "You'll 
excuse  me  just  a  moment,  won't  you,  I  must  settle  some 
things  with  my  decorator,"  Miss  Burgess  felt  a  rich  con- 
tent in  her  hostess'  choice  of  words.  There  were  people 
in  Endbury  society  who  would  have  called  him,  as  had 
the  perplexed  maid,  "  the  gentleman  from  the  greenhouse." 
Later,  asked  for  advice,  she  had  walked  about  the  lower 
floor  of  the  house  with  Mrs.  Emery  and  the  florist,  satu- 
rated with  satisfaction  in  the  process  of  deciding  where  the 
palms  should  be  put  that  were  to  conceal  the  "  orchestra  " 
of  four  instruments,  and  with  what  flowers  the  mantels 
should  be  "  banked." 

After  the  man  had  gone,  they  settled  to  a  consideration  of 


134  The  Squirrel-Cage 

various  important  matters  which  was  interrupted  by  an 
impassioned  call  of  Madame  Boyle  from  the  stairs,  "  Could 
she  bring  Maddemwaselle  down  to  show  this  perfect  fit?" 
—  and  they  glided  into  a  rapt  admiration  of  the  un- 
wrinkled  surface  of  peach-colored  satin  which  clad  Lydia's 
slender  and  flexibly  erect  back.  When  she  turned  about  so 
that  Madame  could  show  them  the  truly  exqueese  effect  of 
the  trimming  at  the  throat,  her  face  showed  pearly  shadows 
instead  of  its  usual  flower-like  glow.  As  Madame  left  the 
room  for  a  moment,  Miss  Burgess  said,  with  a  kind,  re- 
spectful facetiousness,  "  I  see  that  even  fairy  princesses 
find  the  emotions  of  getting  engaged  a  little  trying." 

Lydia  started,  and  flushed  painfully.  "  Oh,  Mother  — " 
she  began. 

Her  mother  cut  her  short.  "  My  dear!  Miss  Burgess ! " 
she  pointed  out,  as  who  should  deplore  keeping  a  secret 
from  the  family  priest,  "  You  know  she  never  breathes  a 
word  that  people  don't  want  known.  And  she  had  to  be 
told  so  she  can  know  how  to  put  things  all  this  winter." 

"  I'm  sure  it's  the  most  wonderfully  suitable  marriage," 
pronounced  Mies  Burgess. 

A  ring  at  the  door-bell  was  instantly  followed  by  the 
bursting  open  of  the  door  and  the  impetuous  onslaught  of 
a  girl,  a  tall,  handsome,  brown-eyed  blonde  about  Lydia's 
age,  who,  wasting  no  time  in  greetings  to  the  older  women, 
flung  herself  .on  Lydia's  neck  with  a  wild  outcry  of  jubila- 
tion. "My  dear!  Isn't  it  dandy!  Perfectly  dandy! 
Paul  met  me  at  the  train  last  night  and  when  he  told  me 
I  nearly  swooned  for  joy !  Of  all  the  tickled  sisters-in-law ! 
I  wanted  to  come  right  over  here  last  night,  but  Paul  said 
it  was  a  secret,  and  wouldn't  let  me."  A  momentary  failure 
of  lung-power  forced  her  to  a  pause  in  which  she  per- 
ceived Lydia's  attire.  She  recoiled  with  a  dramatic  rush. 
"  Oh,  you've  got  one  of  them  on !  Lydia,  how  insanely 
swell  you  do  look !  Why,  Mrs.  Emery  " —  she  turned  to 
Lydia's  mother  with  a  light-hearted  unconsciousness  that 
she  had  not  addressed  her  before  — "  she  doesn't  look  real, 
does  she!" 


Lydia  Decides  in  Perfect  Freedom      135 

There  was  an  instant's  pause  as  the  three  women  gazed 
ecstatically  at  Lydia,  who  had  again  turned  her  back  and 
was  leaning  her  forehead  against  the  window.  Then  the 
girl  sprang  at  her  again.  "Well,  my  goodness,  Lydia! 
I  just  love  you  to  pieces,  of  course,  but  if  we  were  of  the 
same  complexion  I  should  certainly  put  poison  in  your 
candy.  As  it  is,  me  so  blonde  and  you  so  dark  —  I  tell 
you  what  —  what  we  won't  do  this  winter — "  She  ran 
up  to  her  again,  putting  her  arms  around  her  neck  from 
behind  and  whispering  in  her  ear. 

Miss  Burgess  turned  to  her  hostess  with  her  sweet, 
motherly  smile.  "  Aren't  girls  the  dearest  things  ?  "  she 
whispered.  "  I  love  to  see  them  so  young,  and  full  of 
their  own  little  affairs.  I  think  it's  dreadful  nowadays  how 
so  many  of  them  are  allowed  to  get  serious-minded." 

Madeleine  was  saying  to  Lydia,  "  You  sly  little  thing 
—  to  land  Paul  before  the  season  even  began !  Where  are 
you  going  to  get  your  lingerie?  Oh,  isn't  it  fun?  If  I 
go  abroad  I'll  smuggle  it  back  for  you.  You  haven't  got 
your  ring  yet,  I  don't  suppose  ?  Make  him  make  it  a  ruby. 
That's  ever  so  much  sweller  than  that  everlasting  old  dia- 
mond. He's  something  to  land,  too,  Paul  is,  if  I  do  say 
it  —  not,  of  course,  that  we've  either  of  us  got  any  money, 
but,"  she  looked  about  the  handsomely  furnished  house, 
"  you'll  have  lots,  and  Paul'll  soon  be  making  it  hand  over 
fist  —  and  I'll  be  marrying  it ! "  She  ended  with  a  tri- 
umphant pirouette  her  vision  of  the  future,  and  encoun- 
tered Madame  Boyle,  entering  with  a  white  and  gold 
evening  wrap  which  sent  her  into  another  paroxysm  of 
admiration.  The  dressmaker  had  just  begun  to  say  that 
she  thought  another  line  of  gold  braid  around  the  neck 
would  —  when  Mrs.  Emery,  looking  out  of  the  window,  de- 
clared the  caterer  to  be  approaching  and  that  she  must 
have  aid  from  her  subordinates  before  he  should  enter. 
"  I  do  not  want  to  have  that  old  red  lemonade  and  sweet 
crackers  everybody  has,  and  slabs  of  ice-cream  floating 
around  on  your  plate.  Think  quick,  all  of  you!  What 
kind  of  crackers  can  we  have?" 


136  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Animal  crackers,"  suggested  Madeleine,  with  the  accent 
of  a  remark  intended  to  be  humorous,  drawing  Lydia  into 
a  corner.  "  Now,  don't  make  Lydia  work.  She's  It 
right  now,  and  everything's  to  be  done  for  her.  Madame, 
come  over  here  with  that  cloak  and  let's  see  about  the  — 
and  Oh,  you  and  Lydia,  for  the  love  of  Heaven  tell  me 
what  I'm  to  do  about  this  fashion  for  no  hips,  and  me  with 
a  figure  of  eight!  Lydia,  the  fit  of  that  thing  is  sub- 
lime ! " 

"  Maddemwaselle,  don't  you  see  how  a  little  more  gold 
right  here — " 

"Here,  Lydia,"  called  her  mother,  "it  wasn't  the 
caterer  after  all;  it's  flowers  for  you.  Take  it  over  there 
to  the  young  lady  in  pink,"  she  directed  the  boy. 

Madeleine  seized  on  the  box,  and  tore  it  open  with  one 
of  her  vigorous,  competent  gestures.  "Orchids!"  she 
shouted  in  a  single  volcanic  burst  of  appreciation.  "  I 
never  had  orchids  sent  me  in  my  life!  Paul  must  have 
telegraphed  for  them.  You  can't  buy  them  in  Endbury. 
And  here's  a  note  that  says  it's  to  be  answered  at  once, 
while  the  boy  waits  —  Oh,  my !  Oh,  my !  " 

"  Lydia,  dear,  here's  the  caterer,  after  all.  Will  you 
just  please  say  one  thing.  Would  you  rather  have  the 
coffee  or  the  water-ices  served  upstairs  —  Oh,  here's  your 
Aunt  Julia  —  Julia  Sandworth,  I  never  needed  advice 
more." 

Mrs.  Sandworth's  appearance  was  the  chord  which  re- 
solved into  one  burst  of  sound  all  the  various  motives 
emitted  by  the  different  temperaments  in  the  room.  Every 
one  appealed  to  her  at  once. 

"  Just  a  touch  of  gold  braid  on  the  collar,  next  the  face, 
don't  you  — " 

"  Why  not  a  real  supper  at  midnight,  with  creamed 
oysters  and  things,  as  they  do  in  the  East  ?  " 

"  Do  you  see  anything  out  of  the  way  in  publishing  the 
details  of  Miss  Lydia's  dress  the  day  before?  It  gives 
people  a  chance  to  know  what  to  look  ior.* 


"NO,  NO;  i  CAN'T — SEE  HIM — i  CAN'T  STAND  ANY  MURE — " 


Lydia  Decides  in  Perfect  Freedom       137 

"  How  can  we  avoid  that  awful  jam-up  there  is  on  the 
stairs  when  people  begin  to — " 

Mrs.  Sandworth  made  her  way  to  the  corner  where 
Lydia  stood,  presenting  a  faultlessly  fitted  back  to  the 
world  so  that  Madame  Boyle  might,  with  a  fat,  moist 
fore-finger,  indicate  the  spot  where  a  "  soupc.on  "  of  gold 
was  needed. 

"  Please,  ma'am,  the  gentleman  said  I  was  to  wait  for 
an  answer,"  said  the  messenger  boy  beside  her. 

"  And  she  hasn't  read  it,  yet !  "  Madeleine  was  horrified 
to  remember  this  fact. 

"  Turn  around,  Lydia,"  said  Mrs.  Sandworth. 

Lydia's  white  lids  fluttered.  The  eyes  they  revealed  were 
lustrous  and  quite  blank.  Madeleine  darted  away,  crying, 
"  I'm  going  to  get  pen  and  paper  for  you  to  write  your 
note  right  now." 

"  Lydia,"  said  Mrs.  Sandworth,  in  a  low  tone,  "  Daniel 
Rankin  wants  to  speak  with  you  again.  Your  godfather 
is  waiting  here  in  the  hall  to  know  if  you'll  see  him.  He 
didn't  want  to  force  an  interview  on  you  if  you  didn't  want 
it.  He  wants  to  see  you  but  he  wanted  you  to  decide  in 
perfect  freedom  — " 

The  tragic,  troubled,  helpless  face  that  Lydia  showed  at 
this  speech  was  a  commentary  on  the  last  word.  She 
looked  around  the  room,  her  eyebrows  drawn  into  a  knot, 
one  hand  at  her  throat,  but  she  did  not  answer.  Her  aunt 
thought  she  had  not  understood.  "Just  collect  your 
thoughts,  Lydia — " 

The  girl  beat  one  slim  fist  inside  the  other  with  a  sudden 
nervous  movement.  "  But  that's  what  I  can't  do,  Aunt 
Julia.  You  know  how  easily  I  get  rattled  —  I  don't  know 
what  I'm  —  I  can't  collect  my  thoughts." 

As  the  older  woman  opened  her  lips  to  speak  again  she 
cut  her  short  with  a  broken  whispered  appeal.  "  No,  no ; 
I  can't  —  see  him  —  I  can't  stand  any  more  —  tell  him 
I  guess  I'll  be  all  right  —  it's  settled  now  —  Mother's  told 
all  these  —  I  like  Paul.  I  do  like  him!  Mother's  told 


138  THe  Squirrel-Cage 

everybody  here  —  no,  no  —  I  can't,  Aunt  Julia!     I  can't!'' 

Mrs.  Sandworth,  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  opened  her  arms 
impulsively,  but  Lydia  drew  back.  "  Oh,  let  me  alone ! " 
she  wailed.  "  I'm  so  tired !  " 

Madame  Boyle  caught  this  through  the  clatter  of  voices. 
"  Why,  poor  Maddemwaselle ! "  she  cried,  her  kindly, 
harassed,  fatigued  face  melting.  "  Sit  down.  Sit  down. 
I  can  show  the  ladies  about  this  collar  just  as  well  that 
way  —  if  they'll  ever  look." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  had  disappeared. 

Madeleine,  coming  with  the  pen  and  ink,  was  laughing 
as  she  told  them,  "  I  didn't  know  Dr.  Melton  was  in  the 
house.  I  ran  into  him  pacing  up  and  down  in  the  hall  like 
a  little  bear,  and  just  now  I  saw  him  —  isn't  he  too  comical ! 
He  must  have  heard  our  chatter  —  I  saw  him  running  down 
the  walk  as  fast  as  he  could  go  it,  his  fingers  in  his  ears 
as  if  he  were  trying  to  get  away  from  a  dynamite  bomb 
before  it  went  bang." 

"  He  hasn't  much  patience  with  many  necessary  details 
of  life,"  said  Mrs.  Emery  with  dignity.  She  turned  her 
criticism  of  her  doctor  into  a  compliment  to  her  brother's 
widow  by  adding,  "  Whatever  he  would  do  without  Julia 
to  look  after  him,  I'm  sure  none  of  us  can  imagine." 

"  He  is  a  very  original  character,"  said  Miss  Burgess,  dis- 
criminatingly. 

Madeleine  dismissed  the  subject  with  a  compendious, 
"  He's  the  most  killingly,  screamingly  funny  little  man  that 
ever  lived ! " 

"  Now,  ladies,"  implored  Madame  Boyle,  "  one  more  row 
—  not  solid  —  just  a  soupgon  — " 


CHAPTER  XIV 
MID-SEASON  NERVES 

"  IF  I  should  wait  and  read  my  paper  here  instead  of 
on  the  cars,  do  you  suppose  Lydia  would  be  up  before  I 
left?"  asked  the  Judge  as  he  put  his  napkin  in  the  ring 
and  pushed  away  from  the  breakfast  table. 

Mrs.  Emery  looked  up,  smiling,  from  a  letter,  " '  Of 
course  such  a  great  favorite  as  Miss  Emery/ "  she  read 
aloud,  "  '  will  be  hard  to  secure,  but  both  the  Governor 
and  I  feel  that  our  party  wouldn't  be  complete  without  her. 
We're  expecting  a  number  of  other  Endbury  young  people/ 
And  do  you  know  who  writes  that  ?  "  she  asked  triumphantly 
of  her  husband. 

"  How  should  I  ?  "  answered  the  Judge  reasonably. 

"  Mrs.  Ex-Governor  Mallory,  to  be  sure.  It's  their 
annual  St.  Valentine's  day  house-party  at  their  old  family 
estate  in  Union  County." 

The  Judge  got  up,  laughing.  "  Old  family  estate,"  he 
mocked. 

"  They  are  one  of  the  oldest  and  best  families  in  this 
State,"  cried  his  wife. 

"  The  Governor's  an  old  blackguard,"  said  her  husband 
tolerantly. 

"  The  Mallorys  —  the  Hollisters  —  Lydia  is  certainly," 
began  Mrs.  Emery,  complacently. 

Lydia's  father  laughed  again.  "  Oh,  with  you  and  Flora 
Burgess  as  manager  and  press  agent —  !  You  haven't  an- 
swered my  question  about  whether  if  I  waited  and — " 

"  No,  she  wouldn't,"  said  Mrs.  Emery  decisively.  "  After 
dancing  so  late  nights,  I  want  her  to  sleep  every  minute 
she's  not  wanted  somewhere.  /  have  the  responsibility  of 

i39 


140  The  Squirrel-Cage 

looking  after  her  health,  you  know.  I  hope  she'll  sleep 
now  till  just  time  to  get  up  and  dress  for  Marietta's  lunch- 
party  at  one  o'clock." 

The  father  of  the  family  frowned.  "  Is  Marietta  giving 
another  lunch-party  for  Lydia?  They  can't  afford  to  do  so 
much.  Marietta's  — " 

"  This  is  a  great  chance  for  Marietta  —  poor  girl !  she 
hasn't  many  such  chances  —  Lydia's  carrying  everything 
before  her  so,  I  mean." 

"  How  does  Marietta  get  into  the  game  ? "  asked  her 
father  obtusely. 

Mrs.  Emery  hesitated  a  scarcely  perceptible  instant,  a 
hesitation  apparently  illuminating  to  her  husband.  He 
laughed  again,  the  tolerant,  indifferent  laugh  he  had  for  his 
women-folks'  goings-on.  "  She  thinks  she  can  go  up  as 
the  tail  to  Lydia's  kite,  does  she?  She'd  better  not  be  too 
sure.  If  I  don't  miss  my  guess,  Paul'll  have  a  word  or 
two  to  say  about  carrying  extra  weight.  Gosh !  Marietta's 
a  fool  some  ways  for  a  woman  that  has  her  brains." 

He  stated  this  opinion  with  a  detached,  impersonal  irre- 
sponsibility, and  began  to  prepare  himself  for  the  plunge 
into  the  damp  cold  of  the  Endbury  January.  His  wife 
preserved  a  dignified  silence,  and  in  the  middle  of  a  sen- 
tence of  his  later  talk,  which  had  again  turned  on  his  griev- 
ance about  never  seeing  Lydia,  she  got  up,  went  into  the 
hall,  and  began  to  use  the  telephone  for  her  morning  shop- 
ping. Her  conversation  gave  the  impression  that  she  was 
ordering  veal  cutlets,  maidenhair  ferns,  wax  floor-polish, 
chiffon  ruching,  and  closed  carriages,  from  one  and  the 
same  invisible  interlocutor,  who  seemed  impartially  unable 
to  supply  any  of  these  needs  without  rather  testy  exhorta- 
tion. Mrs.  Emery  was  one  of  the  women  who  are  always 
well  served  by  "  tradespeople,"  as  she  now  called  them, 
"  and  a  good  reason  why,"  she  was  wont  to  explain  with 
self-gratulatory  grimness. 

The  Judge  waited,  one  hand  on  the  door-knob,  squaring 
his  jaw  over  his  muffler,  and  listening  with  a  darkening 
face  to  the  interminable  succession  of  purchases.  After 


Mid-Season  Nerves  141 

a  time  he  released  the  door-knob,  loosened  his  muffler,  and 
sat  down  heavily,  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  wife's  back. 

After  an  interval,  Mrs.  Emery  paused  in  the  act  of  ring- 
ing up  another  number,  looked  over  her  shoulder,  saw  him 
there  and  inquired  uneasily,  "  What  are  you  waiting  for  ? 
You'll  catch  cold  with  all  your  things  on.  Isn't  Dr.  Melton 
always  telling  you  to  be  careful  ?  " 

She  felt  a  vague  resentment  at  his  being  there  "  after 
hours,"  as  she  might  have  put  it,  so  definitely  had  long  usage 
accustomed  her  to  a  sense  of  solitary  proprietorship  of  the 
house  except  at  certain  fixed  and  not  very  frequent  periods. 
She  almost  felt  that  he  was  eavesdropping  while  she  "  ran 
her  own  business."  There  was  also  his  remark  about  Mari- 
etta and  kites,  unatoned  for  as  yet.  She  had  not  forgotten 
that  she  "  owed  him  one,"  as  Madeleine  Hollister  light- 
heartedly  phrased  the  connubial  balanced  relationship  which 
had  come  under  her  irreverent  and  keen  observation.  A 
cumulative  sharpness  from  all  these  causes  was  in  her  voice 
as  she  remarked,  "  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  Lydia  — " 

Judge  Emery's  voice  in  answer  was  as  sharp  as  her  own. 
"  Look-y  here,  Susan,  I  bet  you've  ordered  fifty  dollars' 
worth  of  stuff  since  you  stood  there." 

"  Well,  what  if  I  have  ?  "  She  was  up  in  arms  in  an 
instant  against  his  breaking  a  long-standing  treaty  between 
them  —  a  treaty  not  tacit,  but  frequently  and  definitely 
stated. 

They  regulated  their  relations  on  a  sound  business  basis, 
they  were  wont  to  say  of  themselves,  the  natural  one,  the 
right  one.  The  husband  earned  the  money,  the  wife  saw 
that  it  was  spent  to  the  best  advantage,  and  neither  needed 
to  bother  his  head  or  dissipate  his  energies  about  the  other's 
end  of  the  matter.  They  had  found  it  meant  less  friction, 
they  said ;  fewer  occasions  for  differences  of  opinion.  Once, 
when  they  had  been  urging  this  system  upon  their  son 
George,  then  about  to  marry,  Dr.  Melton  had  made  the 
suggestion  that  there  would  be  still  fewer  differences  of 
opinion  if  married  people  agreed  never  to  see  each  other 
after  the  ceremony  in  the  church.  There  would  be  no 


142  The  Squirrel-Cage 

friction  at  all  with  that  system,  he  added.  It  was  one  of 
his  preposterous  speeches  which  had  become  a  family  joke 
with  the  Emerys. 

"Well,  what  if  I  have?"  Mrs.  Emery  advanced  defi- 
antly upon  her  husband,  with  this  remark  repeated. 

Judge  Emery  shared  a  well-known  domestic  peculiarity 
with  other  estimable  and  otherwise  courageous  men.  He 
retreated  precipitately  before  the  energy  of  his  wife's  coun- 
ter-attack, only  saying  sulkily,  to  conceal  from  himself  the 
fact  of  his  retreat,  "  Well,  we're  not  millionaires,  you 
know." 

"  Did  I  ever  think  we  were?  "  she  said,  smiling  inwardly 
at  his  change  of  front.  "  If  you  stand  right  up  to  men, 
they'll  give  in,"  she  often  counseled  other  matrons.  She 
began  to  look  up  another  number  in  the  telephone  book. 

"If  you  order  fifty  dollars'  worth  every  morning,  be- 
sides—" 

"  Three-four-four  —  Weston,"  remarked  his  wife  to  the 
telephone.  To  her  husband  she  said  conclusively,  "  I 
thought  we  were  agreed  to  make  Lydia's  first  season  every- 
thing it  ought  to  be.  And  isn't  she  being  worth  it  ?  There 
hasn't  a  girl  come  out  in  Endbury  in  years  that's  been  so 
popular,  or  had  so  much  — "  She  jerked  her  head  around 
to  the  telephone  — "  Three-four-four  —  Weston  ?  Is  this 
Mr.  Schmidt?  I  want  Mr.  Schmidt  himself.  Tell  him 
Mrs.  Emery — " 

The  Judge  broke  in,  with  the  air  of  launching  the  most 
startling  of  arguments,  "  Well,  my  salary  won't  stand  it ; 
that's  sure!  If  this  keeps  up  I'll  have  to  resign  from  the 
bench  and  go  into  practice  again." 

His  wife  looked  at  him  without  surprise.  "  Well,  I've 
often  thought  that  might  be  a  very  good  thing."  She 
added,  with  good-humored  impatience,  "  Oh,  go  along, 
Nathaniel.  You  know  it's  just  one  of  your  bilious  attacks, 
and  you  will  catch  cold  sitting  there  with  all  your  —  Mr. 
Schmidt,  I  want  to  complain  about  the  man  who  dished  up 
the  ice-cream  at  my  last  reception.  I  am  going  to  give 
another  one  next  week,  and  I  want  a  different — " 


Mid-Season  Nerves  143 

"  I  won't  be  back  to  lunch,"  said  her  husband.  The  door 
slammed. 

As  he  turned  into  the  front  walk  it  opened  after  him, 
and  his  wife  called  after  him,  "  I'm  going  to  give  a  dinner 
party  for  Lydia's  girl  friends  here  this  evening,  so  you'd 
better  get  your  dinner  down-town  or  at  the  Meltons'.  I'll 
telephone  Julia  that — " 

The  Judge  stopped,  disappointment,  almost  dismay,  on 
his  face.  "  I'm  going  to  keep  track  from  now  on,"  he 
called  angrily,  "of  just  how  often  I  catch  a  glimpse  of 
Lydia.  I  bet  it  won't  be  five  minutes  a  week." 

Mrs.  Emery  evidently  did  not  catch  what  he  said,  and  as 
evidently  considered  it  of  no  consequence  that  she  did  not. 
She  nodded  indifferently  and,  drawing  in  her  head,  shut  the 
door. 

At  the  end  of  the  next  week  the  Judge  announced  that 
he  had  put  down  every  time  he  and  Lydia  had  been  in 
a  room  together,  and  it  amounted  to  just  forty-five  minutes, 
all  told.  Lydia,  a  dazzling  vision  in  white  and  gold,  had 
come  downstairs  on  her  way  to  a  dance,  and  because  Paul, 
who  was  to  be  her  escort,  was  a  little  late,  she  told  her 
father  that  now  was  his  time  for  a  "  visit."  This  question 
of  "  visiting  "  had  grown  to  be  quite  a  joke.  Judge  Emery 
clutched  eagerly  at  anything  in  the  nature  of  an  under- 
standing or  common  interest  between  them. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  you  well  enough  to  visit  with  you," 
he  now  said  laughingly,  "  but  I'll  look  at  you  long  enough 
so  I'll  recognize  you  the  next  time  I  meet  you  on  the  street- 
car." 

Lydia  sat  down  on  his  knee,  lightly,  so  as  not  to  crumple 
her  gauzy  draperies,  and  looked  at  her  father  with  the 
whimsical  expression  that  became  her  face  so  well.  "  I'm 
paying  you  back,"  she  said  gayly.  "  I  remember  when  I 
was  a  little  girl  I  used  to  wonder  why  you  came  all  the 
way  out  here  to  eat  your  meals.  It  seemed  so  much  easier 
for  you  to  get  them  near  your  office.  Honest,  I  did." 

"  Ah,  that  was  when  I  was  still  struggling  to  get  my  toes 
into  a  crack  in  the  wall  and  climb  up.  I  didn't  have  time 


144  THe  Squirrel-Cage 

for  you  then.  And  you're  very  ungrateful  to  bring  it  up 
against  me,  for  all  I  was  doing  was  to  wear  my  nose  clear 
off  on  the  grindstone  so's  to  be  able  to  buy  you  such  pretty 
trash  as  this."  He  stroked  the  girl's  shimmering  draperies, 
not  thinking  of  what  he  was  saying,  smiling  at  her,  de- 
lighted with  her  beauty,  with  her  nearness  to  him,  with 
this  brief  snatch  of  intimate  talk. 

"  Ungrateful  —  yourself !  What  am  I  doing  but  wearing 
my  nose  off  on  the  grindstone  —  Dr.  Melton  threatens 
nervous  prostration  every  day  —  so's  to  show  off  your  pretty 
trash  to  the  best  advantage.  7  haven't  any  time  to  bother 
with  you  now !  "  she  mocked  him  laughingly,  her  hands  on 
his  shoulders. 

"  Well,  that  sounds  like  a  bargain,"  he  admitted,  lean- 
ing back  in  his  chair ;  "  I  suppose  I've  got  to  be  satisfied 
if  you  are.  Are  you  satisfied  ?  "  he  asked  with  a  sudden 
seriousness.  "  How  do  you  like  Paul,  now  you  know  him 
better?" 

Lydia  flushed,  and  looked  away  in  a  tremulous  con- 
fusion. "  Why,  when  I'm  with  him  I  can't  think  of  another 
thing  in  the  world,"  she  confessed  in  a  low,  ardent  tone. 

"  Ah,  well,  then  that's  all  right,"  said  the  Judge  com- 
fortably. 

There  was  a  pause,  during  which  Lydia  looked  at  the  fire 
dreamily,  and  he  looked  at  Lydia.  The  girl's  face  grew 
more  and  more  absent  and  brooding. 

The  door-bell  rang.  "  There  he  is,  I  suppose,"  said  her 
father. 

"  But  isn't  it  a  pity  we  couldn't  make  connections  ?  "  she 
asked  musingly.  "  Maybe  I'd  have  liked  you  better  with 
your  nose  on,  better  even  than  pretty  trash." 

"  Eh  ?  "  said  Judge  Emery.  His  blankness  was  so  acute 
that  he  slipped  for  an  instant  back  into  a  rusticity  he  had 
long  ago  left  behind  him.  "What  say,  Lydia?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  yes,  Paul ;  I  didn't  hear  you  come  in,"  called  the 
girl,  jumping  up  and  beginning  to  put  on  her  wraps. 

The  young  man  darted  into  the  room  to  help  her,  saying 
over  his  shoulder :  "  Much  obliged  to  you,  Judge,  for  your 


Mid-Season  Nerves  145 

good  word  to  Egdon,  March  and  Company.  I  got  the  con- 
tract for  the  equipment  of  their  new  factory  to-day." 

The  Judge  screwed  himself  round  in  his  chair  till  he 
could  see  Paul  bending  at  Lydia's  feet,  putting  on  her  high 
overshoes.  "That's  quite  a  contract,  isn't  it?"  he  asked, 
highly  pleased. 

"  The  biggest  I  ever  got  my  teeth  into,"  said  Paul,  straight- 
ening up.  "  I'm  ashamed  to  have  Lydia  know  anything 
about  it,  though.  I  didn't  bring  a  hack  to  take  her  to  the 
dance." 

"  Oh,  I  never  thought  you  would,"  cried  Lydia,  standing 
up  and  stamping  her  feet  down  in  her  overshoes  —  an 
action  that  added  emphasis  to  her  protest.  "  Fd  rather 
walk,  it's  such  a  little  way.  I  like  it  better  when  I'm  not 
costing  people  money." 

"  You're  not  like  most  of  your  sex,"  said  Paul.  "  Down 
in  Mexico,  when  I  was  there  on  the  Brighton  job,  I  heard 
a  Spanish  proverb :  '  If  a  pretty  woman  smiles,  some  purse 
is  shedding  tears.' " 

The  two  men  exchanged  laughing  glances  of  understand- 
ing. Lydia  frowned.  "  That  is  hateful  —  and  horrid  — 
and  a  lie!"  she  cried  energetically,  finding  that  they  paid 
no  attention  to  her  protest. 

"/  didn't  invent  it,"  Paul  exonerated  himself  lightly. 

"  But  you  laughed  at  it  —  you  think  it's  so  —  you  — " 
She  was  trembling  in  a  sudden  resentment  at  once  inex- 
plicable and  amusing  to  the  other  two. 

"  Highty-tighty !  you  little  spitfire ! "  cried  her  father, 
laughing.  "  I  see  your  finish,  my  boy !  " 

"  Good  gracious,  Lydia,  how  you  do  fly  at  a  man !  I  take 
it  back.  I  take  it  back."  Paul  looked  admiringly  at  his 
pretty  sweetheart's  flashing  eyes  and  crimson  cheeks  as  he 
spoke. 

She  turned  away  and  picked  up  her  cloak  without  speak- 
ing. 

"  To  tell  the  truth,"  said  Paul,  going  on  with  the  conver- 
sation as  though  it  had  not  been  interrupted,  and  addressing 
his  father-in-law-to-be,  "  every  penny  I  can  rake  and  scrape 


146  The  Squirrel-Cage 

is  going  into  the  house.  Lydia's  such  a  sensible  little  thing 
I  knew  she'd  think  it  better  to  have  something  permanent 
than  an  ocean  of  orchids  and  candy  now.  Besides,  such  a 
belle  as  she  is  gets  them  from  everybody  else." 

Mrs.  Emery  often  pointed  out  to  Lydia's  inexperience 
that  it  was  rare  to  see  a  man  so  magnanimously  free  from 
jealousy  as  her  fiance. 

"  The  architect  and  I  were  going  over  it  to-day,"  the 
young  electrician  went  on,  "  and  I  decided,  seeing  this  new 
contract  means  such  a  lot,  that  I  would  have  the  panels  in 
the  hall  carved,  after  all  —  of  course  if  you  agree,"  he 
turned  to  Lydia,  but  went  on  without  waiting  for  an  answer. 
"  The  effect  will  be  much  handsomer  —  will  go  with  the 
rest  of  the  house  better." 

"  They'd  be  lots  harder  to  dust,"  said  Lydia  dubiously, 
putting  a  spangled  web  of  gold  over  her  hair.  The  con- 
trast between  her  aspect  and  the  dingy  suggestions  of  her 
speech  made  both  men  laugh  tenderly.  "  When  Titania 
takes  to  being  practical  — "  laughed  Paul. 

Lydia  went  on  seriously.  "  Honestly,  Paul,  I'm  afraid 
the  house  is  getting  too  handsome,  anyhow  —  everything  in 
it.  It's  too  expensive,  I'm  — 

"  Nothing's  too  good  for  you."  Paul  said  this  with  con- 
viction. "  And  besides,  it's  an  asset.  The  mortgage  won't 
be  so  very  large.  And  if  we're  in  it,  we'll  just  have  to  live 
up  to  it.  It'll  be  a  stimulus." 

"  I  hope  it  doesn't  stimulate  us  into  our  graves,"  said 
Lydia,  as  she  kissed  her  father  good-night. 

"  Well,  your  families  aren't  paupers  on  either  side,"  said 
Paul. 

A  casual  remark  like  this  was  the  nearest  approach  he 
ever  made  to  admitting  that  he  expected  Lydia  to  inherit 
money.  He  would  have  been  shocked  at  the  idea  of  allow- 
ing any  question  of  money  to  influence  his  marriage,  and 
would  not  have  lifted  a  hand  to  learn  the  state  of  his  future 
father-in-law's  finances.  Still,  it  was  evident  to  the  most 
disinterested  eye  that  there  were  plenty  of  funds  behind 


Mid-Season  Nerves  147 

the  Emery's  ample,  comfortable  mode  of  life,  and  on  this 
point  his  eyes  were  keen,  for  all  their  delicacy. 

As  the  young  people  paused  at  the  door,  Judge  Emery 
took  a  note-book  out  of  his  pocket  and  elaborately  made 
a  note.  "  Fifty-five  minutes  in  eight  days,  Lydia,"  he 
called. 

At  the  end  of  a  fortnight  he  proclaimed  aloud  that  the 
record  was  too  discouraging  to  keep  any  longer;  he  was 
losing  ground  instead  of  gaining.  He  had  followed  Mrs. 
Emery  to  her  room  one  afternoon  to  make  this  complaint, 
and  now  moved  about  uneasily,  trying  to  bestow  his  large, 
square  figure  where  he  would  not  be  in  the  way  of  his 
wife,  who  was  hurrying  nervously  about  to  pack  Lydia's 
traveling  bag.  She  looked  very  tired  and  pale,  and  spoke 
as  though  near  a  nervous  outbreak  of  some  sort.  Didn't 
he  know  that  Lydia  had  to  start  for  the  Mallory  Valentine 
house-party  this  afternoon,  she  asked  with  an  asperity  not 
directed  at  the  Judge's  complaint,  for  she  considered  that 
negligible,  but  at  Lydia  for  being  late.  She  often  became 
so  absorbed  and  fascinated  by  her  own  managerial  capacity 
that  she  was  vastly  put  out  by  lapses  on  the  part  of  the 
object  of  it.  She  did  not  spare  herself  when  it  was  a 
question  of  Lydia's  career.  Without  a  thought  of  fatigue 
or  her  own  personal  tastes,  she  devoted  herself  with  a 
fanatic  zeal  to  furthering  her  daughter's  interests.  It  some- 
times seemed  very  hard  to  bear  that  Lydia  herself  was  so 
much  less  zealous  in  the  matter. 

When  the  girl  came  in  now,  flushed  and  guiltily  breath- 
less, Dr.  Melton  trotted  at  her  heels,  calling  out  excuses  for 
her  tardiness.  "  It's  my  fault.  I  met  her  scurrying  away 
from  a  card-party,  and  she  was  exactly  on  time.  But  I 
walked  along  with  her  and  detained  her." 

"  It  was  the  sunset,"  said  Lydia,  hurrying  to  change  her 
hat  and  wraps.  "  It  was  so  fine  that  when  Godfather  called 
my  attention  to  it,  I  just  stood!  I  forgot  everything! 
There  may  have  been  sunsets  before  this  winter,  but  it 
seems  as  though  I  hadn't  had  time  to  see  one  before  —  over 


148  The  Squirrel-Cage 

the  ironworks,  you  know,  where  that  hideous  black  smoke 
is  all  day,  and  the  sun  turned  it  into  such  loveliness  — " 

"  You've  missed  your  trolley-car,"  said  her  mother  suc- 
cinctly. 

"Oh,  I'm  sorry!"  cried  Lydia,  in  a  remorse  evidently 
directed  more  toward  displeasing  her  mother  than  the  other 
consequences  of  her  delay,  for  she  asked  in  a  moment,  very 
meekly,  "  Will  it  make  so  very  much  difference  if  I  don't 
go  till  the  next  one  ?  " 

"  You'll  miss  the  Governor.  He  was  coming  down  to 
meet  those  on  this  car.  You'll  have  to  go  all  alone.  All 
the  rest  of  the  party  were  on  this  one." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  care  about  that,"  cried  Lydia.  "  If  that's 
all  —  I'd  ever  so  much  rather  go  alone.  I'm  never  alone 
a  single  minute,  and  it'll  rest  me.  The  crowd  would  have 
been  so  noisy  and  carried  on  so  —  they  always  do." 

Her  mother's  aggrieved  disappointment  did  not  disap- 
pear. She  said  nothing,  bringing  Lydia's  traveling  wraps 
to  her  silently,  and  emanating  disapproval  until  Lydia 
drooped  and  looked  piteously  at  her  godfather. 

Dr.  Melton  cried  out  at  this,  "  Look  here,  Susan  Emery, 
you're  like  the  carpenter  that  was  so  proud  of  his  good 
planing  that  he  planed  his  boards  all  away  to  shavings." 

Mrs.  Emery  looked  at  him  with  a  lack  of  comprehension 
of  his  meaning  equaled  only  by  her  evident  indifference 
to  it. 

"  I  mean  —  I  thought  what  you  were  going  in  for  was 
giving  Lydia  a  good  time  this  winter.  You're  running  her 
as  though  she  were  a  transcontinental  railway  system." 

"  You  can't  accomplish  anything  without  system  in  this 
world,"  said  Mrs.  Emery.  She  added,  "  Perhaps  Lydia  will 
find,  when  she  comes  to  ordering  her  own  life,  that  she  will 
miss  her  old  mother's  forethought  and  care." 

Lydia  flung  herself  remorsefully  on  her  mother's  neck. 
"  I'm  so  sorry,  Mother  dear,"  she  almost  sobbed.  Dr.  Mel- 
ton's professional  eye  took  in  the  fact  that  everyone  in 
the  room  was  high-strung  and  tense.  "  The  middle-of-the- 
social-season  symptom,"  he  called  it  to  himself.  "  I'm  so 


Mid-Season  Nerves  149 

sorry,  Mother,"  Lydia  went  on.  "  I  will  be  more  careful 
next  time.  You  are  so  good  to  —  to — " 

"  Good  Heavens !  "  said  Dr.  Melton.  "  All  the  child  did 
was  to  give  herself  a  moment's  time  to  look  at  a  fine  spec- 
tacle, after  spending  all  a  precious  afternoon  on  such  a 
tragically  idiotic  pursuit  as  cards." 

"  Oh,  sunsets! "  Mrs.  Emery  disposed  of  them  with  a 
word.  "  Come,  Lydia." 

"  I'll  go  with  her,  and  carry  her  bag,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  You  made  such  a  good  job  of  getting  her  here  on 
time,"  said  Mrs.  Emery,  unappeased. 

The  Judge  offered  to  go,  as  a  means  of  one  of  his  rare 
visits  with  Lydia,  but  his  wife  declared  with  emphasis  that 
she  didn't  care  who  went  or  didn't  go  so  long  as  she  herself 
saw  that  Lydia  did  not  take  to  star-gazing  again.  It  ended 
by  all  four  proceeding  down  the  street  together. 

"  You're  sure  you  remember  everything,  Lydia  ?  "  asked 
her  mother. 

"  Let  me  see,"  said  the  girl,  laughing  nervously.  "  Do 
I?  The  Governor's  wife  is  his  second,  so  I'm  to  waste 
no  time  admiring  the  first  set  of  children.  They're  Metho- 
dists, so  I'm  to  keep  quiet  about  our  being  Episcopalians  — " 

"  I  guess  we're  not  Episcopalians  enough  to  hurt,"  com- 
mented her  father,  who  had  never  taken  the  conversion 
of  his  women-folks  very  seriously. 

"  And  it's  my  pink  crepe  for  dinner  and  tan-colored  suit 
if  they  have  afternoon  tea.  And  Mrs.  Mallory  is  to  be 
asked  to  visit  us,  but  not  her  daughter,  because  of  her 
impossible  husband,  and  I'm  to  play  my  prettiest  to  the 
Governor,  because  he's  always  needing  dynamos  and  such 
in  the  works,  and  Paul — " 

The  big  car  came  booming  around  the  corner,  and  she 
stopped  her  category  of  recommendations.  The  doctor 
rushed  in  with  a  last  one  as  they  stepped  hurriedly  toward 
the  rear  platform :  "  And  don't  forget  that  your  host  is 
the  most  unmitigated  old  rascal  that  ever  stood  in  with  two 
political  machines  at  once." 

The  Judge  swung  her  up  on  the  platform,  the  doctor 


The  Squirrel-Cage 

gave  her  valise  to  the  conductor,  her  mother  waved  her 
hand,  and  she  was  off. 

The  two  men  turned  away.  Not  so  Mrs.  Emery.  She 
was  staring  after  the  car  in  a  fierce  endeavor  to  focus  her 
gaze  on  the  interior.  "  Who  was  that  man  that  jumped 
up  so  surprised  to  speak  to  Lydia  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  notice  anybody,"  said  the  Judge. 

Dr.  Melton  spoke  quickly.  "  Lydia's  getting  in  a  very 
nervous  state,  my  friends ;  I  want  you  to  know  that.  This 
confounded  life  is  too  much  for  her." 

"  She  doesn't  kill  herself  getting  up  in  the  morning," 
complained  her  father.  "  It  is  a  month  now  since  I've 
seen  her  at  breakfast." 

"  I  don't  let  her  get  up,"  said  Mrs.  Emery.  "  I  guess  if 
you'd  been  up  till  two  every  morning  dancing  split  dances 
because  you  were  the  belle  of  the  season,  you'd  sleep  late! 
Besides,"  she  went  on,  "  she'll  be  all  right  as  soon  as  her  en- 
gagement is  announced.  The  excitement  of  that'll  brace 
her  up." 

"  Good  Lord !  It's  not  more  excitement  she  needs,"  be- 
gan Dr.  Melton ;  but  they  had  reached  the  house,  and  Mrs. 
Emery,  obviously  preoccupied,  pulled  her  husband  quickly 
in,  dismissing  the  doctor  with  a  nod. 

She  drew  the  Judge  hurriedly  into  the  hall,  and,  "  It  was 
that  Rankin !  "  she  cried,  the  slam  of  the  door  underscoring 
her  words,  "  and  7  believe  Marius  Melton  knew  he  was 
going  on  that  car  and  made  Lydia  late  on  purpose." 

Judge  Emery  was  in  the  state  in  which  of  late  the  end 
of  the  day's  work  found  him  —  overwhelmingly  fatigued. 
He  had  not  an  ounce  of  superfluous  energy  to  answer  his 
wife's  tocsin.  "Well,  what  if  it  was?"  he  said. 

"  They'll  be  an  hour  and  a  half  together  —  alone  —  more 
alone  than  anywhere  except  on  a  desert  island.  Alone  — 
an  hour  and  a  half !  " 

"  Oh,  Susan !  If  Paul  can't  in  three  months  make  more 
headway  than  Rankin  can  tear  down  in  an  hour  and  a 
half—" 


Mid-Season  Nerves  151 

She  raged  at  him,  revolted  at  the  calmness  with  which  he 
was  unbuttoning  his  overcoat  and  unwinding  his  muffler, 
"You  don't  understand  —  anything!  I'm  not  afraid  she'll 
elope  with  him  —  Paul's  got  her  too  solid  for  that  —  Rankin 
probably  won't  say  anything  of  that  kind!  But  he'll  put 
notions  in  her  head  again  —  she's  so  impressionable.  And 
she  says  queer  things  now,  once  in  a  while,  if  she's  left 
alone  a  minute.  She  needs  managing.  She's  not  like  that 
level-headed,  sensible  Madeleine  Hollister.  Lydia  has  to 
be  guided,  and  you  don't  see  anything  —  you  leave  it  all 
to  me." 

She  was  almost  crying  with  nervous  exhaustion.  That 
Lydia's  course  ran  smooth  through  a  thousand  complica- 
tions was  not  accomplished  without  an  incalculable  expen- 
diture of  nervous  force  on  her  mother's  part.  Dr.  Melton 
had  several  times  of  late  predicted  that  he  would  have 
his  old  patient  back  under  his  care  again.  Judge  Emery, 
remembering  this  prophecy,  was  now  moved  by  his  wife's 
pale  agitation  to  a  heart-sickening  mixture  of  apprehension 
for  her  and  of  recollection  of  his  own  extreme  discomfort 
whenever  she  was  sick.  He  tried  to  soothe  her.  "  But, 
Susan,  there's  nothing  we  can  do  about  it,"  he  said  rea- 
soningly,  hanging  up  his  overcoat,  blandly  ignorant  that  her 
irritation  came  largely  from  his  failure  to  fall  in  with  her 
conception  of  the  moment  as  a  tragic  one. 

"  You  could  care  something  about  it,"  she  said  bitterly, 
standing  with  all  her  wraps  on.  The  telephone  bell  rang. 
She  motioned  him  back.  "  No ;  I  might  as  well  go  first 
as  last.  It'll  be  something  I'd  have  to  see  about,  anyway." 

As  he  hesitated  in  the  middle  of  the  hall,  longing  to 
betake  himself  to  a  deep  easy  chair  and  a  moment's  relaxa- 
tion, and  not  daring  to  do  so,  he  was  startled  by  an  electric 
change  in  his  wife's  voice.  "You're  at  Hardville,  you  say? 
Oh,  Flora  Burgess,  I  could  go  down  on  my  knees  in  thanks- 
giving. I  want  you  to  run  right  out  as  fast  as  you  can 
and  get  on  the  next  Interurban  car  from  Endbury.  Lydia's 
on  it  — "  she  cast  caution  from  her  desperately  — "  and  I've 


152  The  Squirrel-Cage 

just  heard  that  there's  somebody  I  don't  want  her  to  talk 
to  —  you  know  —  carpenters  —  run  —  fly  —  never  mind 
what  they  say !  Make  them  talk  to  you,  too !  " 

She  turned  back  to  her  husband,  transfigured  with  tri- 
umph. "  I  guess  that'll  put  a  spoke  in  his  wheel ! "  she 
cried.  "  Flora  Burgess's  at  Hardville,  and  that's  only  half 
an  hour  from  here.  I  guess  they  can't  get  very  far  in  halff 
an  hour." 

The  Judge  considered  the  matter  with  pursed  lips.  "  I 
wish  it  hadn't  happened,"  he  mused,  as  unresponsive  to  his 
wife's  relief  as  he  had  been  to  her  anxiety.  "  At  first,  I 
mean  —  last  autumn; — at  all." 

His  wife  caught  him  up  with  a  good  humor  gay  with 
relief.  "  Oh,  give  you  time,  Nat,  and  you  come  round  to 
seeing  what's  under  your  nose.  I  was  wishing  it  hadn't 
happened  long  before  I  knew  it  had.  I  breathed  it  in  the 
air  before  we  ever  knew  she'd  so  much  as  seen  him." 

"  Melton  says  he  thinks  the  fellow  has  a  future  before 
him—" 

"  Oh,  Marius  Melton !  How  many  of  his  swans  have 
stuffed  feather  pillows !  " 

The  Judge  demurred.  "  I  often  wish  I  could  think  he 
was  —  but  Melton's  no  fool."  He  added,  uneasily,  "  He's 
been  pestering  me  again  about  taking  a  long  rest  —  says 
I'm  really  out  of  condition." 

"  Perhaps  a  change  of  work  would  do  you  good  —  to  be 
in  active  practice  again.  You  could  be  your  own  master 
more  —  take  more  vacations,  maybe." 

The  Judge  surveyed  her  with  a  whimsical  smile.  "  I'd 
make  a  lot  more  money  in  practice,"  he  admitted. 

If  she  heard  this  comment  she  made  no  sign,  but  went 
on,  "  You  do  work  too  constantly,  too.  I've  always  said  so ! 
If  you'd  be  willing  to  take  a  little  more  relaxation  —  go  out 
more  — " 

Judge  Emery  shuddered.     "  Endbury  tea-parties  — !  " 

His  wife,  half-way  up  the  stairs,  laughed  down  at  him. 
"  Tea-parties !  There  hasn't  been  a  tea-party  given  in  End- 
bury  since  we  were  wearing  pull-backs." 


Mid-Season  Nerves  153 

The  laugh  was  so  good-natured  that  the  Judge  hoped  for 
a  favorable  opening  and  ventured  to  say  irrelevantly,  as 
though  reverting  automatically  to  a  subject  always  in  his 
mind,  "  But,  honest,  Susie,  can't  we  shave  expenses  down 
some?  This  winter  is  costing — " 

She  turned  on  him,  not  resentfully  this  time,  but  with 
a  solemn  appeal.  "  Why,  Nat !  Lydia's  season !  The  last 
winter  we'll  have  her  with  us,  no  doubt !  I'd  go  on  bread 
and  water  afterward  to  give  her  what  she  wants  now  — 
wouldn't  you?  What  are  we  old  folks  good  for  but  to  do 
our  best  by  our  children  ?  " 

The  Judge  looked  up  at  her,  baffled,  inarticulate.  "  Oh, 
of  course,"  he  agreed  helplessly,  "  we  want  to  do  the  best 
by  our  children." 


CHAPTER  XV 
A  HALF-HOUR'S  LIBERTY 

INSIDE  the  big  Interurban  car  Lydia  and  Rankin  were 
talking  with  a  freedom  that  enormously  surprised  Lydia. 
The  man  had  started  up  with  an  exclamation  of  pleasure, 
had  taken  her  bag,  found  a  vacant  seat,  put  her  next  the 
window  and  sat  down  by  her  before  Lydia,  quite  breathless 
with  the  shock  of  seeing  him,  could  do  more  than  notice 
how  vigorous  he  looked,  his  tall,  spare  figure  alert  and  erect, 
his  ruddy  hair  and  close-clipped  beard  contrasting  vividly 
with  his  dark-blue  flannel  shirt  and  soft  black  hat.  He  was 
on  a  business  trip,  evidently,  for  on  his  knees  he  held  a 
tool-box  with  large  ungloved  hands,  roughened  and  red. 

With  his  usual  sweeping  disregard  of  conventional  ap- 
proaches, he  plunged  boldly  into  the  matter  with  which  their 
thoughts  were  at  once  occupied.  "  So  this  was  why  Dr. 
Melton  insisted  I  should  take  this  car.  Well,  I'm  grateful 
to  him !  It  gives  me  a  chance  to  relieve  my  mind  of  a 
weight  of  remorse  I've  been  carrying  around." 

Lydia  looked  at  him,  relieved  and  surprised  at  the  hearty 
spontaneity  of  this  opening. 

He  misunderstood  her  expression.  "  You  don't  mind, 
do  you,  my  speaking  to  you  about  last  fall  —  my  saying  I 
am  so  very  sorry  I  made  you  all  the  trouble  Dr.  Melton 
tells  me  I  did  ?  I'm  really  very  sorry !  " 

Nothing  could  have  more  completely  disarmed  Lydia's 
acquired  fear  of  him  as  the  bogey-man  of  her  mother's 
exhortations.  It  is  true  that  she  was,  as  she  put  it  to 
herself,  somewhat  taken  down  by  the  contrast  between  her 
secret  thought  of  him  as  a  wounded,  rejected  suitor,  and 
this  clear-eyed,  self-possessed,  friendly  reality  before  her; 

i54 


A  Half-Hour's  Liberty  155 

but,  after  a  momentary  feeling  of  pique,  coming  from  a 
sense  of  the  romantic,  superficially  grafted  on  her  natural 
good  feeling,  she  was  filled  with  an  immense  relief.  Lydia 
was  no  man-eater.  In  spite  of  traditional  wisdom,  she,  like 
a  considerable  number  of  her  contemporaries,  was  as  far 
removed  from  this  stage  of  feminine  development  as  from 
a  Stone-age  appetite  for  raw  meat.  She  now  drew  a  long 
breath  of  the  most  honest  satisfaction  that  she  had  done 
him  no  harm,  and  smiled  at  Rankin.  He  waited  for  her 
to  speak,  and  she  finally  said:  "It's  awfully  good  of  you 
to  put  it  that  way!  I've  been  afraid  you  must  have  been 
angry  with  me  and  hurt  that  I  —  so  you  didn't  mind  at 
all!" 

Rankin  smiled  at  little  ruefully  at  her  swift  conclusion. 
"  I  believe  in  telling  the  truth,  even  to  young  ladies,  and 
I  can  not  say  I  didn't  mind  at  all  —  or  that  I  don't  now. 
But  I  am  convinced  that  you  were  right  in  dropping  me  — 
out  of  the  realm  of  acquaintances."  His  assumption  was, 
Lydia  saw  with  gratitude,  that  they  were  talking  simply 
about  a  possible  acquaintanceship  between  them.  "  It's  evi- 
dently true  —  what  I  told  you  the  very  first  time  I  saw 
you.  We  don't  belong  in  the  same  world." 

As  he  said  this,  he  looked  at  her  with  an  expression  Lydia 
thought  severe.  She  protested,  "  What  makes  you  so 
sure?" 

"  Because  to  live  in  my  world  —  even  to  step  into  it  from 
time  to  time  —  requires  the  courage  to  believe  in  it." 

"  And  you  think  I  didn't  ? "  asked  Lydia.  It  was  an 
inestimable  comfort  to  her  to  have  brought  into  the  light 
the  problem  that  had  so  long  lain  in  the  back  of  her  head, 
a  confused  mass  of  dark  conjecture. 

"  Did  you  ?  "  he  asked  steadily.     "  You  ought  to  know." 

There  was  silence,  while  Lydia  turned  her  head  away 
and  looked  at  the  brown,  flat  winter  landscape  jerking  itself 
past  the  windows  as  the  car  began  to  develop  speed  in  the 
first  long,  open  space  between  settlements.  She  was  trying 
to  remember  something  distinct  about  the  nightmare  of 
misery  that  had  followed  her  admission  of  the  identity  of 


156  The  Squirrel-Cage 

the  man  who  had  kissed  her  hand  that  starry  night  in 
October,  but  from  the  black  chaos  of  her  recollection  she 
brought  out  only,  "  Oh,  you  don't  realize  how  things  are 
with  a  girl  —  how  many  million  little  ways  she's  bound 
and  tied  down,  just  from  everybody  in  the  family  loving 
her  as  — " 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  do ;  I  prove  I  do  by  saying  that  you  were 
probably  right  in  yielding  so  absolutely  to  that  overwhelm- 
ing influence.  If  you  hadn't  the  strength  to  break  through 
it  decisively  even  once,  you  certainly  couldn't  have  gotten 
any  satisfaction  out  of  doing  things  contrary  to  it.  So  it's 
all  right,  you  see." 

Lydia's  drooping  face  did  not  show  that  she  derived  the 
satisfaction  from  this  view  of  her  limitations  that  her  com- 
panion seemed  to  expect.  "  You  mean  I'm  a  poor-spirited, 
weak  thing,  who'd  better  never  try  to  take  a  step  of  my 
own,"  she  said  with  a  sorry  smile. 

"  I  don't  mean  anything  unkind,"  he  told  her  gently. 
"  I've  succeeded  in  convincing  myself  that  your  action  of 
last  autumn  was  the  result  of  a  deep-rooted  instinct  for 
self-preservation  —  and  that's  certainly  most  justifiable.  It 
meant  I'd  expected  too  harsh  a  strength  from  you — "  he 
went  on  with  a  whimsical  smile,  which  even  the  steadiness 
of  his  eyes  did  not  keep  from  sadness  — "  as  though  I'd 
hoped  you  could  lift  a  thousand-pound  weight,  like  the 
strong  woman  in  the  side-show." 

She  responded  to  his  attempt  at  lightness  with  as  plain 
an  undercurrent  of  seriousness  as  his  own.  "  Why  do 
you  live  so  that  people  have  to  lift  thousand-pound 
weights  before  they  dare  so  much  as  say  good-morning 
to  you?" 

"  Because  I  don't  dare  live  any  other  way,"  he  answered. 

"  It's  hard  on  other  people,"  Lydia  ventured,  but  retreated 
hastily  before  the  first  expression  of  upbraiding  she  had 
seen  in  his  eyes.  He  had  so  suddenly  turned  grave  with  the 
thought  that  it  had  been  harder  on  him  than  on  anyone 
else  that  she  cried  out  hurriedly,  "  But  you  didn't  help  a 
bit  —  you  left  it  all  to  me  — " 


A  Half-Hour's  Liberty  157 

She  stopped,  her  face  burning  in  uncertainty  of  the  mean- 
ing of  her  words. 

Rankin's  answer  came  with  the  swiftness  of  one  who  has 
meditated  long  on  a  question.  "  I'm  glad  you've  given  me 
a  chance  to  say  what  —  I've  wished  you  might  know.  I 
thought  it  over  and  over  at  the  time  —  and  since  —  and  I'm 
sure  it  would  not  have  been  honorable  —  or  delicate  —  or 
right,  not  to  leave  it  all  to  you.  That  much  was  yours  to 
decide  —  whether  you  would  take  the  first  step.  It  would 
have  been  a  crime  to  have  hurried  or  urged  you  beyond 
what  lay  in  your  heart  to  do  —  or  to  have  overborne  you 
against  some  deep-lying,  innate  instinct." 

Lydia's  voice  was  shaking  in  self-pity  as  she  cried  out, 
"  Oh,  if  you  knew  what  the  others  —  nobody  else  was  afraid 
to  hurry  or  urge  me  to — " 

She  stopped  and  looked  away,  her  heart  beating  rapidly 
with  a  flood  of  recollections.  Rankin's  lips  opened,  but  he 
shut  them  firmly,  as  though  he  did  not  trust  himself  to 
speak.  His  large  red  hands  closed  savagely  on  the  handle 
of  his  tool-box.  There  was  a  silence  between  them. 

The  car  began  to  move  more  slowly,  and  the  conductor, 
standing  up  from  the  seat  where  he  had  been  dozing,  re- 
marked in  a  conversational  tone  to  a  woman  with  two 
children  near  him,  "  Gardenton  —  this  is  the  cross-roads  to 
Gardenton."  Later,  as  the  car  stood  still  under  the  singing 
vibration  of  the  trolley-wire  overhead,  he  added  in  the  gen- 
eral direction  of  Lydia  and  Rankin,  now  the  only  pas- 
sengers, "  Next  stop  is  Wardsboro' ! "  His  voice  came 
to  them  with  a  singular  clearness  in  the  quiet  of  the  momen- 
tary stop.  They  were  in  the  midst  of  a  mournful  expanse 
of  bare  ploughed  fields,  frozen  and  brown.  The  motorman 
released  his  brake,  letting  the  brass  arm  swing  noisily  about, 
the  conductor  sat  down  again,  and  as  the  car  began  to  move 
forward  again  he  closed  his  eyes.  He  looked  very  tired 
and,  now  that  an  almost  instant  sleep  had  relaxed  his 
features,  pathetically  young. 

"  How  pale  he  is,"  said  Lydia,  wishing  to  break  the  silence 
with  a  harmless  remark.  "  He  looks  tired  to  death." 


158  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  He  probably  is  just  that,"  said  Rankin,  wincing.  "  It's 
sickening,  the  way  they  work.  Seven  days  a  week,  most  of 
them,  you  know." 

"No;  I  didn't  know,"  cried  Lydia,  shocked.  "Why, 
that's  awful.  When  do  they  see  their  families?" 

"  They  don't.  One  of  them,  whose  house  isn't  far  from 
mine,  told  me  that  he  hadn't  seen  his  children,  except  asleep, 
for  three  weeks." 

"  But  something  ought  to  be  done  about  it !  "  The  girl's 
deep-lying  instinct  for  instant  reparation  rose  up  hotly. 

"  Are  they  so  much  worse  off  than  most  American  busi- 
ness men  ?  "  queried  Rankin.  "  Do  any  of  them  feel  they 
can  take  the  time  to  see  much  more  than  the  outside  of  their 
children;  and  isn't  seeing  them  asleep  about  as — " 

Lydia  cut  him  short  quickly.  "  You're  always  blaming 
them  for  that,"  she  cried.  "  You  ought  to  pity  them.  They 
can't  help  it.  It's  better  for  the  children  to  have  bread  and 
butter,  isn't  it—" 

Rankin  shook  his  head.  "  I  can't  be  fooled  with  that  sort 
of  talk  —  I've  lived  with  too  many  kinds  of  people.  At 
least  half  the  time  it  isn't  a  question  of  bread  and  butter. 
It's  a  question  of  giving  the  children  bread  and  butter  and 
sugar  rather  than  bread  and  butter  and  father.  Of  course, 
I'm  a  fanatic  on  the  subject.  I'd  rather  leave  off  even  the 
butter  than  the  father  —  let  alone  the  sugar." 

"  But  here's  this  very  motorman  you  know  about  —  what 
could  he  do  ?  " 

"  They're  not  forced  by  the  company  to  work  seven  days 
a  week  —  only  they're  not  given  pay  enough  to  let  them 
take  even  one  day  off  without  feeling  it.  This  very  motor- 
man I  was  talking  with  got  to  telling  me  why  he  was  work- 
ing so  extra  hard  just  then.  His  oldest  daughter  is  going 
to  graduate  from  the  high  school  and  he  wants  to  give  her 
a  fine  graduating  dress,  as  good  as  anybody's,  and  a  gradu- 
ating '  present.'  It  seems  that's  the  style  now  for  graduating 
girls.  He  said  he  and  his  wife  wanted  her  always  to 
remember  that  day  as  a  bright  spot,  and  not  as  a  time 


A  Half-Hour's  Liberty  159 

when  she  was  humiliated  by  being  different  from  other 
girls." 

"  Well,  my  goodness !  you're  not  criticizing  them  for  that, 
are  you?  I  think  it  was  just  as  sweet  and  lovely  of  them 
as  can  be  to  realize  how  a  girl  feels." 

Rankin  looked  at  her,  smiled  slightly,  and  said  nothing. 
His  silence  made  Lydia  thoughtful.  After  a  time,  "  I  see 
what  you  mean,  of  course,"  she  said  slowly,  "  that  it  would 
be  better  for  her,  perhaps  —  but  if  he  loves  her,  her  father 
wants  to  do  things  for  her." 

Rankin's  roar  of  exasperation  at  this  speech  was  so  evi- 
dently directed  at  an  old  enemy  of  an  argument  that  Lydia 
was  only  for  an  instant  startled  by  it.  "  I  don't  say  he 
can  do  too  much  for  her,"  he  cried.  "  He  can't !  Nobody 
can  do  too  much  for  anybody  else  if  it's  the  right  thing." 

"  And  what  in  the  world  do  you  think  would  be  the  right 
thing  in  this  case  ?  "  Lydia  put  the  question  as  a  poser. 

"  Why,  of  course,  to  pamper  her  vanity ;  to  feed  her 
moral  cowardice;  to  make  her  more  afraid  than  ever  of 
senseless  public  opinion ;  to  deprive  her  of  a  fine  exercise 
for  her  spiritual  force ;  to  shut  her  off  from  a  sense  of  her 
material  situation  in  life  until  the  knowledge  of  it  will 
come  as  a  tragedy  to  her;  to  let  her  grow  up  without  any 
knowledge  of  her  father's  point  of  view  — " 
'  "  There,  there !  That's  enough !  "  said  Lydia. 

"  I  didn't  need  to  be  so  violent  about  it,  that's  a  fact," 
apologized  Rankin. 

"  But  you're  talking  of  people  the  way  they  ought  to  be," 
objected  Lydia,  apparently  drawing  again  from  a  stock  of 
inculcated  arguments.  "  Do  you  really,  honestly,  suppose 
that  that  girl  would  rather  have  an  opportunity  to  do  some- 
thing for  her  parents  and  —  and  —  and  all  that,  than  have  a 
fine  dress  that  would  cost  a  lot  and  make  the  other  girls 
envious  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Lydia ! "  cried  her  companion,  not  noticing  the 
betrayal  of  a  mental  habit  in  the  slipping  out  of  her  name. 
"  You're  just  in  a  state  of  saturated  solution  of  Dr.  Melton. 


160  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Don't  you  believe  a  word  he  says  about  folks.  They're  lots 
better  than  he  thinks.  The  only  reason  anybody  has  for 
raging  at  them  for  being  a  bad  lot  is  because  they  are 
such  a  good  lot!  They  are  so  chuck- full  of  good  possibili- 
ties !  There's  so  much  more  good  in  them  than  bad.  You 
think  that,  don't  you?  You  must!  There's  nothing  to  go 
on,  if  you  don't." 

As  Lydia  began  to  answer  she  felt  herself,  as  once  or 
twice  before  when  with  Rankin,  suddenly  an  immeasurable 
distance  from  her  usual  ways  of  mental  life.  She  looked 
about  her  upon  a  horizon  very  ample  and  quite  strange, 
without  being  able  to  trace  the  rapid  steps  that  had  carried 
her  away  from  the  close-walled  room  full  of  knickknacks 
and  trifles,  where  she  usually  lived.  She  drew  a  deep  breath 
of  surprise  and  changed  her  answer  to  an  honest  "  I  don't 
believe  I  know  whether  I  believe  you  or  not.  I  don't  think 
I  ever  thought  of  it  before." 

"  What  do  you  think  about  ? "  The  question  was  evi- 
dently too  sincere  an  interrogation  to  resent. 

The  girl  made  several  beginnings  at  an  answer,  stopped, 
looked  out  of  the  window,  looked  down  at  her  shoe-tip,  and 
finally  burst  into  her  little  clear  trill  of  amusement.  "  I 
don't,"  she  said,  looking  full  at  Rankin,  her  eyes  shining. 
"  You've  caught  me !  I  can't  remember  a  single  time  in  my 
day  when  I  think  about  anything  but  hurrying  to  get  dressed 
in  time  to  be  at  the  next  party  promptly.  Maybe  some  folks 
can  think  when  they're  hurrying  to  get  dressed,  but  I  can't." 

Rankin  was  very  little  moved  to  hilarity  by  this  statement, 
but  he  was  too  young  to  resist  the  contagion  of  Lydia's 
mirth,  and  laughed  back  at  her,  wondering  at  the  mobility 
of  her  ever-changing  face. 

"If  you  don't  think,  what  do  you  do?"  he  interrogated 
with  mock  relentlessness. 

"  Nothing,"  said  Lydia  recklessly,  still  laughing. 

"  What  do  you  feel  ? "  he  went  on  in  the  same  tone,  but 
Lydia's  face  changed  quickly. 

"  Oh  —  lots !  "  she  said  uncertainly,  and  was  silent. 

The  car  began  to  pass  some  poor,  small  houses,  and  in  a 


A  Half-Hour's  Liberty  161 

moment  came  to  a  standstill  in  the  midst  of  a  straggling 
village.  The  young  conductor  still  slept  on,  his  head  fallen 
so  far  on  his  shoulder  that  his  breathing  was  difficult.  The 
motorman,  getting  no  signal  to  go  on,  looked  back  through 
the  window,  putting  his  face  close  to  the  glass  to  see,  for 
it  had  grown  dusky  outside  and  the  electric  lights  were  not 
yet  turned  on.  After  a  look  at  the  sleeping  man  he  glanced 
apprehensively  at  the  two  passengers,  and  then,  apparently 
reassured  that  they  were  not  "  company  detectives,"  he 
pushed  open  the  door.  "  This  is  Wardsboro'/'  he  told  them 
as  he  went  down  the  aisle,  "  and  the  next  stop  is  Hardville." 

He  was  a  strong,  burly  man,  and  easily  lifted  the  slight, 
boyish  form  of  the  conductor  to  a  more  comfortable  posi- 
tion, propping  him  up  in  a  corner  of  the  seat.  The  young 
man  did  not  waken,  but  his  face  relaxed  into  peaceful  lines 
of  unconsciousness  as  his  head  fell  back,  and  his  breathing 
became  long  and  regular,  like  a  sleeping  child's.  As  the  big 
motorman  went  back  to  his  post,  he  explained  a  little  sheep- 
ishly to  the  two,  who  had  watched  his  operation  in  attentive 
silence,  "  It's  against  the  rules,  I  know,  but  there  ain't  any- 
body but  you  two  here,  and  he  don't  look  as  though  he'd 
really  got  his  growth  yet.  I  got  a  boy  ain't  sixteen  that 
looks  as  old  as  he  does,  and  ruggeder  at  that.  I  reckon  the 
long  hours  are  too  much  for  him." 

"  Do  you  know  him?  "  asked  Rankin. 

The  motorman  turned  his  red,  weather-beaten  face  to  them 
from  the  doorway  where  he  stood,  pulling  on  his  clumsy 
gloves.  "  Who,  me  ?  "  he  asked.  "  No ;  I  never  seen  him 
till  to-day.  He's  a  new  hand,  I  reckon."  He  drew  the  door 
after  him  with  a  rattling  slam,  rang  the  bell  for  himself, 
and  started  the  car  forward. 

In  the  warm,  vibrating  solitude  of  the  car,  the  two  young 
people  looked  at  each  other  in  a  silent  transport.  Lydia's 
dark  eyes  were  glistening,  and  she  checked  Rankin,  about 
to  speak,  with  a  quick,  broken  "  No ;  don't  say  a  word ! 
You'd  spoil  it!" 

There  was  between  them  one  of  the  long,  vital  silences, 
full  of  certainty  of  a  common  emotion,  which  had  once  or 


162  The  Squirrel-Cage 

twice  before  marked  a  significant  change  in  their  relation. 
Finally,  "  That's  something  I  shall  never  forget,"  said  Lydia. 

Rankin  looked  at  her  in  silence,  and  then,  quickly,  away. 

"  It's  like  an  answer  to  what  I  was  saying  —  a  refutation 
of  what  Dr.  Melton  thinks  —  about  people  — " 

As  Rankin  still  made  no  answer,  she  exclaimed  in  a  rav- 
ished surprise,  "  Why,  I  never  saw  anything  so  lovely  — 
that  made  me  so  happy !  I  feel  warm  all  over !  " 

Indeed,  her  face  shone  through  the  dusk  upon  her  com- 
panion, who  could  now  no  longer  constrain  himself  to  look 
away  from  her.  He  said,  his  voice  vibrant  with  a  deep 
note  which  instantly  carried  Lydia  back  to  the  other  time 
when  she  had  heard  it,  under  the  stars  of  last  October, 
"  It's  only  an  instrument  exquisitely  in  tune  which  can  so 
respond — "  He  broke  off,  closed  his  lips,  and,  turning 
away  from  her,  gazed  sightlessly  out  at  the  dim,  flat  horizon, 
now  the  only  outline  visible  in  the  twilight. 

Lydia  said  nothing,  either  then  or  when,  after  a  long 
pause,  he  said  that  he  would  leave  the  car  at  the  next 
station. 

"  It  has  been  very  pleasant  to  see  you  again,"  he  said, 
bending  over  his  tool-box,  "  and  you  mustn't  lay  it  up 
against  me  that  I  haven't  congratulated  you  on  your  engage- 
ment Of  course  you  know  how  I  wish  you  all  happiness." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Lydia. 

Ahead  of  the  car,  some  lights  suddenly  winking  above  the 
horizon  announced  the  approach  of  Hardville.  Rankin 
stood  up,  slipped  on  his  rough  overcoat,  and  sat  down  again. 
He  drew  a  long  breath,  and  began  evenly :  "  I  know  you 
won't  misunderstand  me  if  I  try  to  say  one  more  thing. 
I  probably  won't  see  you  again  for  years,  and  it  would  be 
a  great  joy  to  me  to  be  sure  that  you  know  how  hearty 
is  my  good-will  to  you.  I'm  afraid  you  can't  think  of  me 
without  pain,  because  I  was  the  cause  of  such  discomfort 
to  you,  but  I  know  you  are  too  generous  to  blame  me  for 
what  was  an  involuntary  hurt.  Of  course  I  ought  to  have 
known  how  your  guardians  would  feel  about  your  knowing 
me—" 


A  Half -Hour's  Liberty  163 

"  Oh,  why  should  you  be  so  that  all  that  happened !  "  cried 
Lydia  suddenly.  "  If  it  was  too  hard  for  me,  why  couldn't 
you  have  made  it  easier  —  thought  differently  —  acted  like 
other  people.  Would  you  —  if  I  hadn't  —  if  we  had  gone 
on  knowing  each  other  ?  " 

Rankin  turned  very  white.     "  No,"  he  said ;  "  I  couldn't." 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Lydia  hurriedly,  "  that,  without 
being  willing  to  concede  anything  to  their  ideas,  you  ask 
a  great  deal  of  your  friends." 

"Yes,"  said  Rankin,  "I  do.  It's  a  hard  struggle  I'm  in 
with  myself  and  the  world  —  oh,  evidently  much  too  hard 
for  you  even  to  look  at  from  a  distance."  His  voice  broke. 
"  The  best  thing  I  can  do  for  you  is  to  stay  away  — "  He 
rose,  and  stepped  into  the  aisle.  "  But  you  are  so  kind'— 
you  will  let  me  serve  you  in  any  other  way,  if  I  can  —  ever. 
If  I  can  ever  do  something  that's  hard  for  you  to  do  —  you 
must  know  that  I  stand  as  ready  as  even  Dr.  Melton  to  do 
it  for  you  if  I  can." 

Indeed,  for  the  moment,  as  Lydia  looked  up  into  his 
kind,  strong  face,  his  impersonal  tenderness  made  him  seem 
almost  such  an  old,  tried  friend  as  her  godfather;  almost  as 
unlikely  to  expect  any  intimate  personal  return  from  her. 

"  You  must  remember,"  he  went  on,  "  the  great  joy  it 
gave  us  both  to-day  even  to  see  an  act  of  kindness.  Give 
me  an  opportunity  to  do  one  for  you  if  I  ever  can." 

It  already  seemed  to  Lydia  as  though  he  had  gone  away 
from  her,  as  though  this  were  but  a  beneficent  memory  of 
him  lingering  by  her  side.  She  hardly  noticed  when  he 
left  her  alone  in  the  car. 

The  conductor  started  up,  wakened  by  the  silence,  and 
announced  wildly,  "  Wardsboro',  Wardsboro' !  " 

"  No,  it  ain't ;  it's  the  first  stop  in  Hardville,"  contra- 
dicted the  motorman,  sticking  his  head  in  through  the  door. 
"  Turn  on  them  lights !  " 

As  the  glass  bulbs  leaped  to  a  dazzling  glare,  Lydia  blinked 
and  looked  away  out  of  the  window.  A  moment  later  an 
arm  laid  about  her  neck  made  her  bound  up  in  amazement 
and  confront  a  small,  middle-aged  woman,  with  a  hat  too 


164  The  Squirrel-Cage 

young  for  her  tired,  sallow  face,  with  a  note-book  in  her 
hand  and  an  apologetic  expression  of  affection  in  her  light 
blue  eyes.  "  I'm  sorry  I  startled  you,  Miss  Lydia,"  she 
said.  "  I  keep  forgetting  you're  not  still  a  little  girl  I 
can  pick  up  and  hug." 

"  Oh,  you !  "  breathed  the  girl,  sitting  down  again.  "  I 
didn't  think  there  was  anybody  in  the  car  with  me,  you 
see." 

"  Have  you  come  all  the  way  from  Endbury  alone,  then  ?  " 
asked  Miss  Burgess,  looking  about  her  suspiciously. 

"  No,  I  have  not,"  said  Lydia  uncompromisingly.  "  Mr. 
Rankin,  the  cabinet-maker,  has  been  with  me  till  just  now." 

Miss  Burgess  sat  down  hastily  in  the  vacant  seat  by 
Lydia.  "  And  he's  coming  back  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  No ;  he  got  off  at  Hardville.  This  is  Hardville,  isn't 
it?" 

"  Yes.  I  happened  to  be  out  reporting  a  big  church 
bazaar  here."  She  settled  back  comfortably.  "  What  a 
nice  chance  for  a  cozy  little  visit  I  shall  have  with  you. 
These  long  trips  on  the  Interurban  are  fine  for  talking. 
Unless  I  shall  tire  you?  Did  Mr.  Rankin  talk  much? 
What  does  he  talk  about,  anyhow?  He's  always  so  rude 
to  me  that  I've  never  heard  him  say  a  word  except  about 
his  work." 

Lydia  considered  for  a  moment.  "  We  talked  about  the 
street-car  conductors  having  such  long  hours  to  work,"  she 
said,  "  and  later  about  whether  people  have  more  bad  in 
them  than  good." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Miss  Burgess. 

Lydia  smiled  faintly,  the  ghost  of  her  whimsical  little 
look  of  mockery.  "  We  decided  that  they  have  more  good," 
she  said. 

Miss  Burgess  cast  about  her  for  a  suitable  comment.  At 
last,  "  Really !  "  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
ENGAGED  TO  BE  MARRIED 

ALL  over  the  half-finished  house  the  workmen  began  to 
lay  down  their  tools.  Paul  Hollister's  face  broke  into  a 
good-humored  smile  as  a  moment  later  he  caught  the  far- 
away five-o'clock  whistles  calling  from  the  city.  He  was  in 
a  very  happy  mood  these  days  and  the  best  aspect  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  world  was  what  impressed  him  most. 
As  the  workmen  disappeared  down  the  driveway  to  the 
main  road,  running  to  catch  the  next  trolley-car  to  Endbury, 
he  looked  after  them  with  little  of  the  usual  exasperation 
of  the  house-builder  whose  work  they  were  slighting,  but 
with  an  agreeable  sense  of  their  extreme  inferiority  to  him 
in  the  matter  of  fixity  of  purpose.  He  felt  that  they  sym- 
bolized the  weakness  of  most  of  humanity,  and  promised 
himself  with  a  comfortable  confidence  an  easy  and  lifelong, 
victory  over  such  feeble  adversaries.  Of  late,  business  had 
been  going  even  better  than  ever. 

The  days  had  begun  to  grow  appreciably  longer  with  the 
approach  of  spring,  and  there  had  been  several  noons  of 
an  almost  summer-like  mildness,  but  now,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  sun  was  still  shining,  the  first  chill  of  the  late 
March  evening  dropped  suddenly  upon  the  bare-raftered 
structure  whose  open  windows  and  door-spaces  offered  no 
barrier  to  the  damp  breeze.  Hollister  stirred  from  his 
pleasant  reverie  and  began  to  walk  briskly  about,  inspecting 
the  amount  of  work  accomplished  since  his  last  visit.  He 
kept  very  close  track  of  the  industry  of  his  workmen  and 
the  competence  of  his  contractor,  and  Lydia's  father  ad- 
mired greatly  the  way  in  which  his  future  son-in-law  did 
not  allow  himself  to  be  "  done  "  by  those  past  masters  of 

165 


166  The  Squirrel-Cage 

the  art.  It  argued  well  for  the  future,  Judge  Emery 
thought,  and  he  called  Lydia's  attention  to  the  trait  with 
approval. 

Before  the  wide  aperture  which  was  to  be  the  front  door, 
the  owner  of  the  house  stopped  and  looked  eagerly  out 
toward  the  road.  It  was  near  the  time  when  Lydia  had 
promised  to  be  there,  and  he  meant  to  see  her  and  run  to 
meet  her  when  she  first  turned  in  upon  the  ground  that  was 
to  be  her  home.  It  was  the  first  time  that  Lydia  had  hap- 
pened to  visit  the  new  house  alone.  Either  her  mother 
or  Hollister's  sister  had  accompanied  her  on  the  two  or 
three  other  occasions,  but  to-day  she  telephoned  that  Mrs. 
Emery  had  been  really  out-and-out  forbidden  by  Dr. 
Melton  to  get  out  of  bed  for  two  or  three  days,  and  as 
for  Madeleine  —  at  this  point  Madeleine  had  snatched  the 
receiver  from  Lydia's  hand  and  had  informed  her  brother 
that  Madeleine  was  going  to  be  busy  with  her  young  man 
and  couldn't  get  off  to  chaperone  people  that  had  been  as 
long  engaged  as  he  and  Lydia. 

That  was  part  of  the  bright  color  of  the  world  to  Paul 
• — his  sister's  recent  engagement  to  their  uncle's  partner 
in  the  iron  works,  a  very  prosperous,  young-old  bachelor 
of  fifty-odd,  whose  intense  preoccupation  with  business 
had  never  been  pierced  by  any  consciousness  of  the  other 
sex  until  Madeleine  had,  as  she  proclaimed  in  her  own 
vernacular,  "  taken  a  club  to  him."  It  was  a  very  brilliant 
match  for  her,  and  justified  her  own  prophecy  concerning 
herself  that  she  was  not  to  be  satisfied  with  any  old-fash- 
ioned, smooth-running  course  for  true  love.  "  It  must 
shoot  the  chutes,  or  nothing,"  she  was  accustomed  to  say, 
in  her  cheerful,  high-spirited  manner. 

Paul  thought,  with  self -approval,  that,  for  orphans  of 
the  poorer  branch  of  the  Hollister  family,  he  and  Madeleine 
had  not  done  badly  with  their  lives  thus  far. 

He  looked  again  impatiently  toward  the  entrance  to  the 
grounds.  A  trolley-car  had  just  rattled  by  on  the  main 
road.  If  Lydia  was  on  it,  she  would  appear  at  that  turn- 
ing under  the  trees.  No;  evidently  she  had  not  been  on 


Engaged  To  Be  Married  167 

that  one.  The  harsh  jar  of  the  trolley's  progress  died 
away  in  the  distance  and  no  Lydia  appeared.  He  had  fif- 
teen minutes  to  wait  for  the  next  one. 

He  drew  out  a  note-book  and  began  jotting  down  some 
ideas  about  the  disposition  of  the  five  acres  surrounding 
the  house.  He  was  ambitious  to  have  the  appearance  of  a 
country  estate  and  avoid  the  "  surburban "  look  which 
would  be  so  fatally  easy  to  acquire  in  the  suburban  place. 
He  decided  that  he  would  not  as  yet  fence  in  his  land. 
The  house  was  the  last  one  of  a  group  of  handsome  resi- 
dences that  had  lately  sprung  up  in  the  vicinity  of  the  new 
Country  Club,  and  to  the  south  was  still  open  country, 
so  that  without  a  fence,  he  reflected,  he  could  have  himself, 
and  convey  tacitly  to  others,  the  illusion  of  owning  the 
wide  sweep  of  meadow  and  field  which  stretched  away  a 
mile  or  more  to  a  group  of  beech  trees. 

He  jumped  down  lightly  from  the  porch,  as  yet  but 
sketchily  outlined  in  joists  and  rafters,  and  stood  in  a 
litter  of  shavings,  bits  of  board  and  piles  of  yellow  earth, 
with  a  kindling  eye.  He  had  that  happy  prophetic  vision 
of  the  home-builder  which  overlooks  all  present  deficiencies 
and  in  an  instant,  with  a  confident  magic,  erects  all  that 
the  slow  years  are  to  build.  He  saw  a  handsome,  well- 
kept  house,  correctly  colonial  in  style,  grounds  artfully 
laid  out  to  increase  the  impression  of  space,  a  hospitable, 
smoothly  run  interior,  artistic,  homelike,  admired. 

A  meadow-lark  near  him  began  to  tinkle  out  its  pretty 
silver  notes.  The  sun  set  slowly  below  the  smoky  horizon ; 
a  dewy  peace  fell  about  the  deserted  place.  Paul  had  his 
visions  of  other  than  material  elements  in  his  future  and 
Lydia's.  Such  a  dream  came  to  him  there,  standing  in  the 
dusk  before  the  germ  of  his  home  to  be.  He  saw  himself 
an  alert  man  of  forty-five,  a  good  citizen,  always  on  the 
side  of  civic  honor;  a  good  captain  of  industry,  quick  to 
see  and  reward  merit;  a  good  husband  who  loved  and 
cherished  his  wife  as  on  the  day  he  married  her,  and 
protected  her  from  all  the  asperities  of  reality;  a  good 
father  —  he  had  almost  an  actual  vision  of  the  children 


1 68  The  Squirrel-Cage 

who  would  carry  on  his  work  in  life  —  girls  of  Lyoia's 
beauty  and  sweetness,  boys  with  his  energy  and  upright- 
ness—  and  there  was  Lydia,  too,  the  Lydia  of  twenty 
years  from  now  —  in  the  full  bloom  of  physical  allurement 
still,  a  gracious  hostess,  a  public-spirited  matron,  lending  the 
luster  of  his  name  to  all  worthy  charities  indorsed  by  the 
best  people,  laying  down  with  a  firm  good  taste  dictates 
as  to  the  worthy  social  development  of  the  town.  Before 
this  vision  there  rose  up  in  him  the  ardent  impulse  to  im- 
mediate effort  which  is  the  sign  manual  of  the  man  of 
action.  He  stirred  and  flung  his  arm  out. 

"  It's  all  up  to  me,"  he  said  aloud.  "  I  can  do  it  if  I 
go  after  it  hard  enough.  I've  got  to  make  good  for  Lydia's 
sake  and  mine.  She  must  have  the  best  I  can  get  —  the 
very  best  I  know  how  to  get  for  her." 

A  sound  behind  him  made  him  catch  his  breath.  He  was 
trembling  as  he  turned  about  and  saw  Lydia  coming 
swiftly  up  the  driveway.  "  Good  Heavens,  how  I  love 
her !  "  he  thought  as  he  ran  down  to  meet  her. 

He  was  trembling  when  he  took  her  in  his  arms,  folding 
her  in  that  close  embrace  of  surprised  rapture  at  finding 
everything  real,  and  no  dream,  which  is  the  unique  joy  of 
betrothal.  He  would  not  let  her  speak  for  a  moment, 
pressing  his  lips  upon  hers.  When  he  released  her,  she 
cried  in  a  whisper,  "  Oh,  it's  wonderful  how  when  you're 
close  to  me  everything  else  just  isn't  in  the  world!  " 

"  That's  being  in  love,  Lydia,"  Paul  told  her  with  a  grave 
thankfulness. 

"  I  don't  mean,"  she  went  on,  with  her  ever-present  effort 
to  express  honestly  her  meaning,  "I  don't  mean  just  — 
just  being  really  close  —  having  your  arms  around  me, 
though  that  always  makes  me  forget  things,  too  —  but 
being  —  feeling  close,  you  know  —  inside.  Not  having  any 
inner  corner  where  we're  not  together  —  the  way  we  are 
now  —  the  way  I  knew  we  should  be  when  I  saw  you 
running  down  to  meet  me.  I  always  know  the  minute  I 
see  you  whether  it's  going  to  be  this  way."  She  added, 
a  little  wistfully,  "  Sometimes,  you  know,  it  isn't." 


Engaged  To  Be  Married  169 

Paul  lifted  her  up  to  the  porch  and  led  her  across  into 
the  hallway.  Here  he  took  her  in  his  arms  again  and  said 
with  a  shaken  accent :  "  Dearest  Lydia,  dearest !  I  wish 
it  were  always  the  way  you  want  it  — " 

Lydia  dropped  her  head  back  on  his  shoulder  and  looked 
at  him  earnestly.  In  the  half-light,  white  and  clear  from 
the  freshly  plastered  walls,  her  face  was  like  alabaster. 
"  Dear  Paul,  isn't  that  what  getting  married  means  —  to 
learn  how  to  be  really,  really  close  to  each  other  all  the 
time.  There  isn't  anything  else  worth  getting  married 
for,  is  there  ?  Is  there  ?  " 

Her  lover  looked  down  into  her  eyes,  into  her  sweet, 
earnest  face,  and  could  not  speak.  Finally,  his  hand  at 
his  throat,  "  Oh,  Lydia,  you're  too  good  for  me ! "  he  said 
huskily.  "  You're  too  good  for  any  man !  " 

"  No,  no,  no !  "  she  protested  with  a  soft  energy.  "  I'm 
weak,  as  weak  as  water.  You  must  give  me  a  lot  of  your 
strength  or  I'll  go  under." 

"  God  knows  I'll  give  you  anything  I  have." 

"  Then,  never  let  things  come  between  us  —  never, 
never,  never!  I'm  all  right  as  long  as  I'm  close  to  you. 
If  we  just  keep  that,  nothing  else  can  matter." 

They  were  silent,  standing  with  clasped  hands  in  the 
passage-way  that  was  to  be  the  thoroughfare  of  their  com- 
mon life.  It  was  a  moment  that  was  to  come  back  many 
times  to  Lydia's  memory  during  later  innumerable,  hurried 
daily  farewells.  The  thought  of  the  significance  of  the 
place  came  to  her  mind  now.  She  said  softly,  "  This  must 
be  a  foretaste  of  what  we're  to  have  under  this  roof. 
How  good  it  seems  not  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  — " 

With  a  start  Paul  came  to  himself  from  his  unusual  for- 
getfulness  of  his  surroundings.  "  We  ought  to  be  in  a 
hurry  now,  dearest.  Dr.  Melton  keeps  me  stirred  up  all 
the  time  to  take  care  of  you,  and  I'm  sure  I'm  not  doing 
that  to  let  you  stand  here  in  this  cold  evening  air.  Come, 
let  me  show  you  —  the  closet  under  the  stairs,  you  know, 
and  the  place  for  the  refrigerator." 

Lydia  yielded  to  his  care  for  her  with  her  sweet  pas- 


170  The  Squirrel-Cage 

sivity,  echoed  his  opinion  about  the  details,  and  ran  beside 
him  down  the  driveway,  to  catch  the  next  car  to  Endbury, 
with  a  singular  light  grace  for  a  tall  woman  encumbered 
with  long  skirts. 

In  spite  of  their  haste,  they  missed  the  car  and  were 
obliged  to  wait  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  beside  the  tracks. 
They  talked  cheerfully  on  indifferent  topics,  the  sense  of 
intimate  comradeship  gilding  all  they  said.  In  their  hearts 
was  fresh  the  memory  of  the  scene  in  the  new  house. 
They  looked  at  each  other  and  smiled  happily  in  the  in- 
tervals of  their  talk. 

Paul  was  recapitulating  to  Lydia  the  advantages  of  the 
location  of  their  house.  "  We  are  in  the  vanguard  of  a  new 
movement  in  American  life,"  he  said,  "  the  movement  away 
from  the  cities.  Madeleine  tells  me  that  she  and  Lovvder 
are  planning  a  house  at  the  other  end  of  this  street,  and 
you  can  be  sure  they  know  what  they  are  about." 

Lydia  did  not  dissent  from  this  opinion  of  her  future  sis- 
ter-in-law, but  she  interrupted  Paul  a  moment  later,  to  say 
fondly,  "  Oh,  but  I'm  glad  that  you  aren't  fifty-five  and 
bald  and  with  lots  of  money !  " 

Paul  laughed.  "  Madeleine'll  get  on  all  right.  She 
knows  what  she's  about.  It's  a  pair  of  them." 

"  Well,  I  am  church-thankful  that  that  is  not  what  we 
are  about !  "  exclaimed  Lydia. 

Her  lover  voiced  the  extreme  content  with  his  lot  which 
had  been  his  obsession  that  day.  "  We  have  everything, 
darling.  We  shall  have  all  that  Madeleine  and  old  Lowder 
have  and  we  have  now  all  this  heavenly  happiness  that 
they'll  never  know  —  or  miss,"  he  added,  giving  them  their 
due. 

"I  didn't  mean  that,"  protested  Lydia.  "  It  seems  to  me 
that  being  like  them  and  being  like  us  are  two  contradic- 
tory things.  You  can't  be  both  and  have  the  things  that 
go  with  both.  And  what  I'm  so  thankful  for  is  that  we're 
us  and  not  them." 

Paul  laughed.     "  You  just  see  if  there's  anything  so  con- 


Engaged  To  Be  Married  171 

tradictory.  Trust  me.  You  just  see  if  you  don't  beat 
Madeleine  on  her  own  ground  yet." 

"  I  don't  want  — "  began  Lydia ;  but  Paul  had  gone  back 
to  his  first  theme  and  was  expanding  it  for  her  benefit. 
"  Yes ;  we're  getting  the  English  idea.  In  twenty  years 
from  now  you'll  find  the  social  center  of  every  moderate- 
sized  American  city  shifted  to  some  such  place  as  this." 

Lydia  craned  her  neck  down  the  tracks  impatiently.  "  I 
hope  we  don't  miss  a  trolley  car  every  day  of  those  twenty 
years,"  she  said,  laughing. 

"  We'll  have  an  automobile,"  he  said.  Then,  reflecting 
that  this  was  a  somewhat  exaggerated  prophecy,  he  went  on, 
with  the  honesty  he  meant  always  to  show  Lydia  (so 
far  as  should  be  wise),  "  No;  I'm  afraid  we  sha'n't,  either 
—  not  for  some  time.  It'll  take  several  years  to  finish 
paying  altogether  for  the  house,  and  we'll  have  to  pull 
hard  to  keep  up  our  end  for  a  time.  But  we're  young,  so 
much  won't  be  expected  of  us  —  and  if  we  just  dig  in  for 
a  few  years  now  while  we're  fresh,  we  can  lie  back  and  — " 

"  Well,  gracious!  "  said  Lydia,  "  who  wants  an  automo- 
bile, anyhow !  Only  I  wish  the  trolley  didn't  take  so  long. 
It's  going  to  take  the  best  part  of  an  hour,  you  know ;  the 
ten  or  twelve  minutes  to  get  here  from  the  house,  the 
two  or  three  minutes  to  wait,  the  thirty  minutes  on  the 
car,  the  ten  minutes  to  your  office  —  and  then  all  that 
turned  inside  out  when  you  come  back  in  the  evening." 

"  Oh,  I'll  be  able  to  do  a  lot  of  business  figuring  in  that 
time.  It  won't  be  wasted." 

They  fell  into  happy  picture-making  of  their  future. 
Lydia  wanted  to  have  chickens  and  a  garden,  she  said.  She'd 
always  wanted  to  be  a  farmer's  wife  —  an  idea  that  caused 
Paul  much  laughter.  They  revised  the  plans  for  the  fur- 
nishing of  the  hall  —  the  china  closet  could  stand  against 
the  west  wall  of  the  dining-room ;  why  had  they  not  thought 
of  that  before?  The  little  room  upstairs  was  to  be  a  sew- 
ing-room — "  Although  I  hate  sewing,"  cried  Lydia,  "  and 
nowadays,  when  ready-mades  are  so  cheap  and  good  — " 


172  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Nobody  expected  you  to  make  yourself  tailored  street 
dresses,"  said  Paul ;  "  but  don't  I  all  the  time  hear  Made- 
leine and  my  aunt  saying  how  the  '  last  chic  of  a  costume, 
the  little  indefinable  touches  that  give  a  toilet  distinction/ 
they  have  to  fuss  up  themselves  out  of  bits  of  lace  and 
ribbon  and  fur  and  truck  ? "  He  was  quoting,  evidently, 
with  an  amused  emphasis. 

Lydia  leaned  to  him,  her  eyes  wide  in  a  mock  solemnity. 
"  Paul,  I  have  a  horrible  confession  to  make  to  you.  I 
loathe  the  '  last  chic,  the  little  indefinable  touches  that  give 
a  toilet,'  and  so  forth !  It  makes  me  sick  to  spend  my  time 
on  them.  What  difference  does  it  make  to  real  folks  if 
their  toilets  aren't '  and  so  forth ! ' ' 

She  looked  so  deliciously  whimsical  with  her  down-drawn 
face  of  rebellious  contrition  that  Paul  was  enchanted. 
"  And  this  I  learn  when  it's  too  late  for  me  to  draw  back ! " 
he  cried  in  horror.  "  Woman !  woman !  this  tardy  confes- 
sion!" 

"  Oh,  there  are  lots  of  other  confessions.     Just  wait." 

"Out  with  them!" 

"  I  don't  know  anything." 

"  That's  something,"  admitted  Paul. 

"  And  you  must  teach  me." 

"Oh,  this  docile  little  1840  wife!  Don't  you  know  the 
suffragists  will  get  you  if  you  talk  meek  like  that?  What 
do  you  want  to  know?  Volts,  and  dynamos,  and  induc- 
tion coils  ?  " 

"  Everything,"  said  Lydia  comprehensively,  "  that  you 
know.  Books,  politics,  music  — " 

"  Lord !  what  a  hash !  What  makes  you  think  I  know 
anything  about  such  things  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  went  through  Cornell.  You  must  know  about 
books.  And  you're  a  man,  you  must  know  about  politics ; 
and  as  for  music,  we'll  learn  about  that  together.  Aunt 
Julia  and  Godfather  are  going  to  give  us  a  piano-player  — 
though  I  know  they  can't  afford  it,  the  dears !  " 

"  People  are  good  to  us."  Paul's  flush  of  gratitude  for 
his  good  fortune  continued. 


Engaged  To  Be  Married  173 

'/'  You  like  music,  don't  you ?  "  asked  Lydia. 

"  I  guess  so ;  I  don't  know  much  about  it.  Some  crazy 
German  post-grads  at  Cornell  used  to  make  up  a  string 
quartette  among  themselves  and  play  some  things  I  liked 
to  hear  —  I  guess  it  was  pretty  good  music,  too.  They 
were  sharks  on  it,  I  know.  Yes ;  now  I  think  of  it,  I  used 
to  like  it  fine.  Maybe  if  I  heard  more — " 

"  Oh,  the  evenings  together !  "  breathed  Lydia.  "  Doesn't 
it  take  your  breath  away  to  think  of  them?  We'll  read  to- 
gether — " 

Paul  saw  the  picture.  "  Yes ;  there're  lots  of  books  I've 
always  meant  to  get  around  to." 

They  were  silent,  musing. 

Then  Paul  laughed  aloud.  Lydia  started  and  looked  at 
him  inquiringly. 

"  Oh,  I  was  just  thinking  how  old  married  folks  would 
laugh  to  hear  us  infants  planning  our  little  castles  in  Spain. 
You  know  how  they  always  smile  at  such  ideas,  and  say 
every  couple  starts  out  with  them  and  after  about  six 
months  gets  down  to  concentrating  on  keeping  up  the  fur- 
nace fire  and  making  sure  the  biscuits  are  good." 

Lydia  laid  her  hand  eagerly  on  his  arm.  "  But  don't  let's, 
Paul !  Please,  please  don't  let  us !  Just  because  everybody 
else  does  is  no  reason  why  we  have  to.  You're  always 
saying  folks  can  make  things  go  their  way  if  they  try  hard 
enough  —  you're  so  clever  and  — " 

"  Oh,  I'm  a  wonder,  I  know !  You  needn't  tell  me  how 
smart  I  am." 

"  But,  Paul,  I'm  in  earnest  —  I  mean  it  — " 

The  car  had  arrived  by  this  time  and  he  swung  her  up 
to  the  platform.  Like  other  moderns  they  were  so  accus- 
tomed to  spend  a  large  part  of  their  time  in  being  trans- 
ported from  place  to  place  that  they  were  quite  at  home  in 
the  noisy  public  conveyance,  and  after  a  pause  to  pay  fares, 
remove  wraps,  and  nod  to  an  acquaintance  or  two,  they 
went  on  with  their  conversation  as  though  they  were  alone. 
People  looked  approvingly  at  the  comely,  well-dressed 
young  couple,  so  naively  absorbed  in  each  other,  and  specu- 


174  The  Squirrel-Cage 

lated  as  to  whether  they  were  just  married  or  just  about  to 
be. 

After  they  were  deposited  at  the  corner  nearest  the 
Emery  house,  the  change  to  the  silent  street,  up  which  they 
walked  slowly,  reluctant  to  separate,  took  them  back  to  their 
first  mood  of  this  loveliest  of  all  their  hours  together  — 
the  sweet  intimacy  of  their  first  meeting  in  the  new  house. 

Lydia  felt  herself  so  wholly  in  sympathy  with  Paul  that 
she  was  moved  to  touch  upon  something  that  had  never  been 
mentioned  between  them.  "  Paul,  dear,"  she  said,  her  cer- 
tainty that  he  would  understand,  surrounding  her  with  an 
atmosphere  of  spiritual  harmony  which  she  recognized  was 
the  thing  in  all  the  world  which  mattered  most  to  her, 
"  Paul  dear,  I  never  told  you  —  there's  nothing  to  tell, 
really  —  but  when  I  went  to  the  Mallory's  house-party  in 
February  I  rode  from  here  to  Hardville  with  Mr.  Rankin 
and  had  a  long  talk  with  him.  You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

Her  lover  drew  her  hand  within  his  arm  and  gave  it  an 
affectionate  pressure.  "  You  may  not  know  things,  Lydia, 
as  you  say,  but  you  are  the  nicest  girl!  the  straightest!  I 
knew  that  at  the  time  —  Miss  Burgess  told  me.  But  I'm 
glad  you've  given  me  a  chance  to  say  how  sorry  I  was  for 
you  last  autumn  when  everybody  was  pestering  you  so 
about  him.  I  knew  how  you  felt  —  better  than  you  did, 
I'll  bet  I  did!  I  wasn't  a  bit  afraid.  I  knew  you  could 
never  care  for  anybody  but  me.  Why,  you're  mine,  Lydia, 
I'm  yours,  and  that's  all  there  is  to  it.  You  know  it  as  well 
as  I  do." 

"I  know  it  when  I'm  with  you,"  she  told  him  with  a 
bravely  honest,  unspoken  reservation.  • 

He  laughed  his  appreciation  of  her  insistent  sincerity. 
"  Well,  when  you're  married  won't  you  be  with  me  all  the 
time  ?  So  that's  fixed !  And  as  for  meeting  somebody  by 
accident  on  the  street-cars  —  why,  you  foolish  darling, 
you're  not  marrying  a  Turk,  or  an  octopus  —  but  an  Amer- 
ican." 

Lydia  was  silent,  but  her  look  was  enough  to  fill  the 
pause  richly.  She  was  savoring  to  the  full  the  joy  of  close 


Engaged  To  Be  Married  175 

community  of  spirit  which  had  been  so  rare  in  her  pleasant 
life  of  material  comfort,  and  she  was  saying  a  humble 
prayer  that  she  might  be  good  enough  to  be  worthy  of  it, 
that  she  might  be  wise  enough  to  make  it  the  daily  and 
hourly  atmosphere  of  her  life  with  Paul. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about,  darling?  "  asked  the  other. 

"  I  was  thinking  how  lovely  it's  going  to  be  to  be  really 
married  and  come  to  know  each  other  well.  We  don't 
know  each  other  at  all  yet,  really,  you  know." 

Paul  was  brought  up  short,  as  so  often  with  Lydia,  by  an 
odd,  disconcerted  feeling,  half  pleasure,  half  shock,  from  the 
discovery  in  her  of  pages  that  he  had  not  read,  germs  of 
ideas  that  had  not  come  from  him.  "  Why,  darling  Lydia, 
what  do  you  mean?  We  know  each  other  through  and 
through ! "  he  now  protested.  It  gave  a  tang  of  the  un- 
expected to  her  uniform  sweetness,  this  always  having  a 
corner  still  to  turn  which  kept  her  out  of  his  sight.  Paul 
was  used  to  seeing  most  women  achieve  this  effect  of  un- 
certainty by  the  use  of  coquetry,  and  in  the  free-and-easy 
give  and  take  between  young  America  of  both  sexes,  he 
had  learned  with  a  somewhat  cynical  shrewdness  to  dis- 
count it.  He  entered  into  the  game,  but,  in  his  own  phrase, 
he  always  knew  what  he  was  about.  Lydia,  on  the  con- 
trary, often  penetrated  his  armor  by  one  of  these  shafts, 
barbed  by  her  complete  unconsciousness  of  any  intent. 
He  felt  now,  with  a  momentary  anguish,  that  he  could 
never  be  sure  of  her  belonging  quite  to  him  until  they  were 
married,  and  cried  out  upon  her  idea  almost  angrily,  "  I 
don't  know  what  you  mean !  We  know  each  other  now." 

"  Oh,  no,  we  don't,"  she  insisted.  "  There  are  lots  of 
queer  fancies  in  me  that  you'll  only  find  out  by  living  with 
me  —  and,  Oh,  Paul!  the  fine,  noble  things  I  feel  in  you! 
But  I  can  see  the  whole  of  them  only  by  seeing  you  day  by 
day.  And  then  there  are  lots  of  things  that  aren't  in  us, 
really,  yet,  but  only  planted.  They'll  grow  —  we'll  grow 
—  Paul,  to-day  is  an  epoch.  We've  passed  a  new  mile- 
stone." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  he  asked. 


176  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  The  way  we've  felt  —  the  way  we've  talked  —  of  real 
things  —  out  there  in  our  own — "  She  laughed  a  little,  a 
serene  murmur  of  drollery  which  came  to  her  when  she 
was  at  peace.  "  We've  been  engaged  since  November,  but 
we  only  got  engaged  to  be  married  to-day  —  just  as  our 
wedding's  to  be  in  June,  but  goodness  knows  when  our  mar- 
riage will  be." 

Paul  smiled  at  her  tenderly.  "  If  I'd  known  the  date  was 
so  uncertain  as  that  I  shouldn't  have  dared  to  go  so  far  in 
my  house-building." 

"  Oh,  it's  all  right  so  far,"  she  reassured  him,  smiling ; 
"  but  we  must  pitch  in  and  finish  it.  Why,  that's  just  it, 
Paul  — "  she  was  struck  with  the  aptness  of  her  illustration 
— "  that's  just  it.  We've  got  the  rafters  and  joists  up 
now;  maybe  before  we're  married,  if  we're  good,  we  can 
get  the  roof  on  so  it  won't  rain  on  us ;  but  all  the  finishing, 
all  that  makes  it  good  to  live  in,  has  got  to  be  done  after  the 
wedding." 

He  did  not  know  exactly  what  she  was  talking  about,  but 
he  made  up  for  vagueness  by  fervor.  "  After  we  are  mar- 
ried," he  cried,  "  I'll  move  mountains  and  turn  stones  to 
Sold." 

"  But  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  lay  floors  for  us  to  walk 
on,"  Lydia  told  him. 

For  answer,  he  drew  her  into  his  arms  and  closed  her 
mouth  with  a  kiss. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
CARD-DEALING  AND  PATENT  CANDLES 

SPRING  had  come  with  its  usual  hotly  advancing  rush  upon 
the  low-lying,  sheltered  southerly  city.  There  had  been  a 
few  days  of  magical  warmth,  full  of  spring  madness,  when 
every  growing  thing  had  expanded  leaves  with  furious 
haste,  when  the  noise  of  children  playing  in  the  street 
sounded  loud  through  newly-opened  windows,  when,  even 
on  city  streets,  every  breath  of  the  sweet,  lively  air  was  an 
intoxicating  potion.  Then,  with  a  bound,  the  heat  was  there. 
Evenings  and  nights  were  still  cool,  but  noons  were  as  op- 
pressive as  in  July.  The  scarcely  expanded  leaves  hung 
limp  in  a  summer  heat. 

All  during  that  eventful  winter,  Mrs.  Emery  had  fre- 
quently remarked  to  her  sister-in-law  that  Lydia's  social 
career  progressed  positively  with  such  brilliancy  that  it  was 
like  "  something  you  read  about."  Mrs.  Sandworth  invaria- 
bly added  the  qualifying  clause,  "  But  in  a  very  nice  book, 
you  know,  with  only  nice  people  in  it,  where  everything 
comes  out  nicely  at  the  end."  Her  confidence  in  literature 
as  a  respectable  source  of  pleasure  was  not  so  guileless  as 
Mrs.  Emery's.  It  had  been  cruelly  shaken  by  dipping  into 
some  of  the  Russian  novels  of  the  doctor's. 

Not  infrequently  the  two  ladies  felt,  with  a  happy  im- 
portance, that  they  were  the  authors  of  the  book  and  that 
the  agreeable  episodes  and  dramatic  incidents  which  had 
kept  the  flow  of  the  narrative  so  sparkling  were  the  product 
of  their  own  creative  genius.  When  April  came  on,  and 
Lydia  agreed  to  the  announcement  of  her  engagement,  they 
felt  the  need  of  some  remarkable  way  of  signaling  that 
important  event  and  of  closing  her  season  with  a  burst  of 

177 


178  The  Squirrel-Cage 

glory.  For  her  season  had  to  end !  Dr.  Melton  said  posi- 
tively that  if  Lydia  had  another  month  of  the  life  she  had 
been  leading  he  would  not  be  responsible  for  the  conse- 
quences. "  She  has  a  fine  constitution,  inherited  from  her 
farmer  grandparents,"  he  said,  smiling  to  see  Mrs.  Emery 
wince  at  this  uncompromising  statement  of  Lydia's  ances- 
try, "  but  her  nervous  organization  is  too  fine  for  her  own 
good.  And  I  warn  you  right  now  that  if  you  get  her 
nerves  once  really  jangled,  I  shall  take  to  the  woods.  You 
can  just  give  the  case  to  another  doctor.  It  would  be  too 
much  for  me." 

The  girl  herself  insisted  that  she  felt  perfectly  well  and 
able  to  stand  more  than  when  she  first  began  going  out. 
She  affirmed  this  with  some  impatience,  her  eyes  very  bright, 
her  cheeks  flushed,  whenever  her  godfather  protested 
against  a  new  undertaking.  "  When  you  get  going,  you 
can't  stop,"  she  told  him,  shaking  off  his  detaining  hand. 
Mrs.  Emery  told  the  doctor  that  he'd  forgotten  the  time 
when  he  was  young  or  he'd  remember  that  all  girls  who'd 
been  popular  at  all  —  let  alone  a  girl  like  Lydia  —  looked 
thin  and  worn  by  the  end  of  the  season ;  but  during  the  last 
week  of  April,  when  the  first  hot  days  had  arrived,  a  small 
incident  surprised  her  into  thinking  that  perhaps  the  doctor 
had  some  right  on  his  side. 

Not  that  there  was  in  itself  anything  so  very  alarming 
about  a  nervous  explosion  from  a  girl  so  high-strung  and 
susceptible  as  Lydia.  The  startling  thing  was  that  this  ex- 
plosion proceeded,  so  far  as  her  mother  could  see,  from 
nothing  at  all,  from  the  idlest  of  chance  remarks  by  Mrs. 
Sandvvorth,  as  always,  whitely  innocent  of  the  smallest  in- 
tention to  wound. 

She  and  Mrs.  Emery  were  much  given  to  watching  Lydia 
dress  for  the  innumerable  engagements  that  took  her  away 
from  the  house.  They  made  a  pretext  of  helping  her,  but 
in  truth  they  were  carried  away  by  the  delight  in  another's 
beauty  which  is  more  common  among  women  than  is  gen- 
erally imagined.  They  took  the  profoundest  interest  in  the 
selection  of  the  toilet  she  should  wear,  and  regarded  with  a 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        179 

charmed  surprise  the  particular  aspect  of  Lydia's  slim  come- 
liness which  it  brought  out.  They  could  not  decide  whether 
they  liked  her  best  in  clinging,  picture  costumes,  big  hats, 
plumes,  trailing  draperies,  and  the  like,  or  dashing,  jaunty 
effects.  Once  in  the  winter,  after  she  had  left  them  on 
her  way  to  an  evening  skating  party  and  they  had  seen 
her  from  the  window  join  Hollister  and  add  her  skates  to 
those  glittering  on  his  shoulder,  Mrs.  Sandworth  promul- 
gated one  of  her  unexpected  apothegms :  "  Do  you  know 
what  we  are,  Susan  Emery?  We're  a  couple  of  old  children 
playing  with  a  doll."  Mrs.  Emery  protested  with  an 
instant,  reproving  self-justification:  "You  may  be  — 
you're  not  her  mother;  but  I  understand  Lydia  through 
and  through." 

Mrs.  Emery  felt  that  if  Lydia  had  overheard  that  remark 
of  her  aunt's  her  excitement  and  resentment  might  have  been 
natural ;  but  the  one  which  led  to  the  distressing  little  scene 
in  late  April  was  as  neutral  as  an  ordinary  morning  saluta- 
tion. The  two  were  watching  Lydia  dress  for  a  luncheon 
which  Mrs.  Hollister  —  the  Mrs.  Hollister  —  was  giving 
in  her  honor.  It  was  about  noon  of  a  warm  day,  and  the 
air  that  came  in  at  the  open  windows  was  thrillingly  alive 
with  troubling,  disquieting  suggestions  of  the  new  life  of 
spring.  Lydia,  however,  showed  none  of  the  languor  which 
the  sudden  heat  had  brought  to  the  two  elder  women.  She 
was  a  little  late,  and  her  hurry  had  sent  a  high  color  to  her 
cheeks,  the  curves  of  which  were  refined  to  the  most  ex- 
quisite subtlety  by  the  loss  of  flesh  so  deplored  by  Dr. 
Melton.  She  was  used,  by  this  time,  to  dressing  in  a  hurry, 
but  her  fingers  trembled  a  little,  and  she  tried  three  times 
before  she  could  coil  her  dark  silky  hair  smoothly.  She  was 
frowning  a  little  with  the  fixity  of  her  concentration  as  she 
turned  to  snatch  up  her  long  gloves  and  she  did  not  hear 
Mrs.  Sandworth's  question  until  it  had  been  repeated, 

"  I  said,  Lydia,  is  it  to  be  bridge  this  afternoon?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Lydia  with  the  full  stop  of  absent 
indifference. 

"Didn't  Mrs.  Hollister  say?" 


180  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Maybe  she  did.  I  didn't  notice."  The  girl  was  tug- 
ging at  her  glove. 

"  Well,  anyhow,"  said  her  mother,  "  since  everybody's; 
giving  you  card-parties,  I  should  think  you'd  want  to  prac- 
tice up  and  learn  how  to  deal  better.  It's  queer,"  she 
went  on  to  Mrs.  Sandworth,  "  Lydia's  so  deft  about  so 
many  things,  that  she  should  deal  cards  so  badly." 

"Oh,  goodness!  As  if  there  was  nothing  better  to  do 
than  that ! "  cried  Lydia,  beginning  on  the  other  glove. 

"Well,  what  have  you  to  do  that's  better?"  asked  her 
aunt  in  some  astonishment.  "  Lydia,  my  dear,  your  col- 
lar is  pinned  the  least  bit  crooked.  Here,  just  let  me — " 

Lydia  had  stopped  short,  her  glove  dangling  from  her 
wrist.  "  Why,  what  a  horrible  thing  to  say ! "  She 
brought  this  out  with  a  tragic  emphasis,  immensely  dis- 
concerting to  her  two  elders. 

"  Horrible !  "  protested  Mrs.  Sandworth. 

"  Yes,  horrible,"  insisted  the  girl.  She  had  turned  very 
pale.  "  The  very  way  you  say  it  and  don't  think  anything 
about  it,  makes  it  horrible." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  began  to  doubt  her  own  senses. 
"  Why,  what  did  I  say  ?  "  she  appealed  to  Mrs.  Emery  in 
bewildered  interrogation,  but  before  the  latter  could  an- 
swer Lydia  broke  out :  "  If  I  really  believed  that,  why, 
I'd  —  I'd — "  She  hesitated,  obviously  between  tragic 
consequences,  and  then,  to  the  great  dismay  of  her  com- 
panions, began  to  cry,  still  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  her  glove  dangling  from  her  slim,  white  wrist. 

"  Don't  Lydia !  Oh,  don't,  dear !  You'll  make  your- 
self look  like  a  fright  for  the  luncheon."  Mrs.  Emery  ran 
to  her  daughter  with  a  solicitude  in  which  there  was  con- 
siderable irritation.  "  You're  perfectly  exhausting,  taking 
everything  that  deadly  serious  way.  Don't  be  so  morbid! 
You  know  your  Aunt  Julia  didn't  mean  anything.  She 
never  does ! " 

Lydia  pulled  away  and  threw  herself  on  the  bed,  still 
sobbing,  and  protesting  that  she  could  not  go  to  the 
luncheon ;  and  in  the  end  Mrs.  Emery  was  obliged  to  make 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        181 

the  profoundest  apologies  over  the  telephone  to  a  justly 
indignant  hostess. 

In  the  meantime  Lydia  was  undressed  and  put  to  bed 
by  Mrs.  Sandworth,  who  dared  not  open  her  mouth.  The 
girl  still  drew  long,  sobbing  breaths,  but  before  her  aunt 
left  the  room  she  lay  quiet,  her  eyes  closed.  The  other 
was  struck  by  the  way  her  pallor  brought  out  the  thinness 
of  her  lovely  face.  She  hovered  helplessly  for  a  moment 
over  the  bed.  "  Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you, 
dearie  ?  "  she  asked  humbly. 

Lydia  shook  her  head.  "  Just  let  me  be  quiet,"  she  mur- 
mured. 

At  this,  Mrs.  Sandworth  retreated  to  the  door,  from 
which  she  ventured  a  last  "  Lydia  darling,  you  know  I'm 
sorry  if  I  said  anything  to  hurt — " 

Lydia  raised  herself  on  her  elbow  and  looked  at  her 
solemnly.  "  It  wasn't  what  you  said;  it  was  what  it 
meant!"  she  said  tragically. 

With  this  cryptic  utterance  in  her  ears,  Mrs.  Sandworth 
fled  downstairs,  to  find  her  sister-in-law  turning  away 
from  the  telephone  with  a  frown.  "  Mrs.  Hollister  was 
very  much  provoked  about  it,  and  I  don't  blame  her.  It's 
hard  to  make  her  understand  we  couldn't  have  given  her 
a  little  warning.  And  —  that's  the  most  provoking  part 
—  I  didn't  dare  say  Lydia  is  really  sick,  when,  as  like  as 
not,  she'll  be  receiving  company  this  evening." 

"  You  wouldn't  want  her  sick,  just  so  it  would  be  easier 
to  explain,  would  you  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Sandworth  with  her 
eternal  disconcerting  innocence. 

Mrs.  Emery  relieved  her  mind  by  snapping  at  her  sister- 
in-law  with  the  violence  allowed  to  an  intimate  of  many 
years'  standing,  "  Good  gracious,  Julia !  you're  as  bad  as 
Lydia!  Turning  everything  people  say  into  something 
quite  different — " 

Mrs.  Sandworth  interrupted  hastily,  "  Susan,  tell  me, 
for  mercy's  sake,  what  did  I  say?  The  last  thing  I  re- 
member passing  my  lips  was  about  her  collar's  being  a 
little  crooked, —  and  just  now  she  told  me,  as  though  it 


The  Squirrel-Cage 

was  the  crack  of  Doom,  that  it  wasn't  what  I  said,  but 
what  it  meant,  that  was  so  awful.  What  in  the  world  does 
she  mean  ?  " 

Mrs.  Emery  sank  into  a  seat  with  a  gesture  of  utter 
impatience.  "Mean?  Mean  nothing!  Didn't  you  ever 
know  an  engaged  girl  before?  " 

"  Well,  I'm  sure  when  I  was  engaged  I  never  — " 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  did ;  you  must  have.  They  all  do.  It's 
nerves." 

But  a  moment  later  she  contradicted  her  own  assurance 
with  a  sigh  of  unresignation.  "  Oh,  dear !  why  can't 
Lydia  be  just  bright  and  wholesome  and  fun-loving  and 
natural  like  Madeleine  Hollister !  "  She  added  darkly,  "  I 
just  feel  in  my  bones  that  this  has  something  to  do  with 
that  Rankin  and  his  morbid  ideas." 

Mrs.  Sandworth  was  startled.  "  Good  gracious !  You 
don't  suppose  she — " 

"  No ;  of  course  I  don't !  I  never  thought  of  such  a 
thing.  You  ought  to  see  her  when  she  is  with  Paul.  She's 
just  fascinated  by  him!  But  you  know  as  well  as  I  do 
that  ideas  go  right  on  underneath  all  that ! "  Her  tone 
implied  a  disapproval  of  their  tenacity  of  life.  "  And 
yet,  Lydia's  really  nothing  unusual !  Before  they  get  mar- 
ried and  into  social  life,  and  settled  down  and  too  basy 
to  think,  most  girls  have  a  queer  spell.  Only  most  of  them 
take  it  out  on  religion.  Oh,  why  couldn't  she  have  met 
that  nice  young  rector  —  if  she  had  to  meet  somebody  to 
put  ideas  into  her  head  —  instead  of  an  anarchist." 

"  Well,  it's  certainly  all  past  now,"  Mrs.  Sandworth  re- 
assured her. 

"  Yes ;  hasn't  it  been  a  lovely  winter !  Everybody's 
been  so  good  to  Lydia.  Everything's  succeeded  so !  But 
I  suppose  Dr.  Melton's  right.  We  ought  to  call  her  season 
over,  except  for  the  announcement  party  —  and  the  wed- 
ding, of  course  —  and  oh,  dear!  There  are  so  many 
things  I'd  planned  to  do  I  can't  possibly  get  in  now.  It 
seems  strange  a  child  of  mine  should  be  so  queer  and  have 
such  notions." 


Carcl-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        183 

However,  after  the  two  had  talked  over  the  plans  for 
a  great  evening  garden-party  in  the  Emery  "  grounds " 
and  Mrs.  Emery's  creative  eye  had  seen  the  affair  in  a 
vista  of  brilliant  pictures,  she  felt  more  composed.  She 
went  up  quietly  to  Lydia's  door  and  looked  in. 

The  girl  was  lying  on  her  back,  her  wide,  dark  eyes 
fixed  on  the  ceiling.  Something  in  the  expression  of  her 
face  gave  her  mother  a  throb  of  pain.  She  yearned  over 
the  foolish,  unbalanced  young  thing,  and  her  heart  failed 
her,  in  that  universal  mother's  fear  for  her  child  of  the 
roughnesses  of  life,  through  which  she  herself  has  passed 
safely  and  which  have  given  savor  to  her  existence.  In 
her  incapacity  to  conceive  other  roughnesses  than  those 
she  could  feel  herself,  she  was,  it  is  probable,  much  like 
the  rest  of  humankind.  She  advanced  to  the  bed,  her  ten- 
derest  mother-look  on  her  face,  and  cut  Lydia  off  from  speech 
with  gentle  wisdom.  "  No,  no,  dear ;  don't  try  to  talk. 
You're  all  tired  out  and  nervous  and  don't  know  — " 

Lydia  had  begun  excitedly :  "  I've  been  feeling  it  for 
a  long  time,  but  when  Aunt  Julia  said  right  out  that  I 
didn't  know  how  to  do  anything  better  than  —  that  I  was 
only  good  to  — " 

Her  mother  laid  a  firm,  gentle  hand  over  the  quivering 
mouth,  and  said  in  a  soothing  murmur,  "  Hush,  hush ! 
darling.  It  wasn't  anything  your  poor  foolish  Aunt  Julia 
said.  It  isn't  anything,  anyhow,  but  being  up  too  much 
and  having  too  much  excitement.  People  get  to  thinking  all 
kinds  of  queer  things  when  they're  tired.  Mother  knows. 
Mother  knows  best." 

She  had  prepared  a  glass  of  bromide,  and  now,  lifting 
Lydia  as  though  she  were  still  the  child  she  felt  her  to 
be,  she  held  it  to  her  lips.  "  Here,  Mother's  poor,  tired 
little  girl  —  take  this  and  go  to  sleep ;  that's  all  you  need. 
Just  trust  Mother  now." 

Lydia  took  the  draught  obediently,  but  she  sighed  deeply, 
and  fixed  her  mother  with  eyes  that  were  unrelentingly 
serious. 

When  Mrs.  Emery  looked  in  after  half  an  hour,  she 


184  The  Squirrel-Cage 

saw  that  Lydia  was  still  awake,  but  later  she  fell  asleep, 
and  slept  heavily  until  late  in  the  afternoon. 

On  her  appearance  at  the  dinner-table,  still  languid  and 
heavy-eyed,  she  was  met  with  gentle,  amused  triumph. 
"  There,  you  dear.  Didn't  I  tell  you  what  you  needed 
was  sleep.  There  never  was  a  girl  who  didn't  think  a 
sick  headache  meant  there  was  something  wrong  with  her 
soul  or  something." 

Judge  Emery  laughed  good-naturedly,  as  he  sliced  the 
roast  beef,  and  said,  with  admiration  for  his  wife,  "  It's 
a  good  thing  my  high-strung  little  girl  has  such  a  level- 
headed mother  to  look  after  her.  Mother  knows  all  about 
nerves  and  things.  She's  had  'em  —  all  kinds  —  and 
come  out  on  top.  Look  at  her  now." 

Lydia  took  him  at  his  word,  and  bestowed  on  her  mother 
a  long  look.  She  said  nothing,  and  after  a  moment 
dropped  her  eyes  listlessly  again  to  her  plate.  It  was 
this  occasion  which  Mrs.  Emery  chose  to  present  to  the 
Judge  her  plans  for  the  expensive  garden-party,  so  that 
in  the  animated  and,  at  times,  slightly  embittered  discus- 
sion that  followed,  Lydia's  silence  was  overlooked. 

For  the  next  few  days  she  stayed  quietly  indoors,  re- 
fusing and  canceling  engagements.  Mrs.  Emery  said  it 
was  "  only  decent  to  do  that  much  after  playing  Mrs. 
Hollister  such  a  trick,"  and  Lydia  did  not  seem  averse. 
She  sewed  a  little,  fitfully,  tried  to  play  on  the  piano  and 
turned  away  disheartened  at  the  results  of  the  long  neg- 
lect—  there  had  been  no  time  in  the  season  for  practice 
—  and  wandered  about  the  library,  taking  out  first  one 
book  then  another,  reading  a  little  and  then  sitting  with 
brooding  eyes,  staring  unseeingly  at  the  page.  Once 
her  mother,  finding  her  thus,  inquired  with  some  sharp- 
ness what  book  she  was  reading  to  set  her  off  like  that. 
"  It's  a  book  by  Maeterlinck,"  said  Lydia,  "  that  God- 
father gave  me  ever  so  long  ago,  and  I've  never  had 
time  to  read  it." 

"Do  you  like  it?  What's  it  about?"  asked  her  mother, 
suspiciously 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        185 

"  I  can't  understand  it,"  said  Lydia,  "  when  I'm  read- 
ing it.  But  when  I  look  away  and  think,  I  can,  a  little 
bit.  I  love  it.  It  makes  me  feel  like  crying.  It's  all 
about  our  inner  life." 

"  My  dear  Lydia,  you  put  your  hat  right  on  and  go  over 
to  have  a  little  visit  with  Marietta.  What  you  need  is  a 
little  fresh  air  and  some  sensible  talk.  I've  been  too  busy 
with  my  invitation  list  to  visit  with  you  as  I  ought.  Mari- 
etta'll  be  real  glad  to  see  you.  Here's  your  hat.  Now, 
you  run  right  along,  and  stop  at  Hallam's  on  the  way  and 
get  yourself  an  ice-cream  soda.  It's  hot,  and  that'll  do 
you  good." 

As  Lydia  was  disappearing  docilely  out  of  the  door,  her 
mother  stopped  before  going  back  to  her  desk  and  the 
list  of  guests  for  the  garden-party,  which  had  been  tor- 
turing her  with  perplexity,  to  say,  "  Oh,  Lydia,  don't  for- 
get to  ask  Marietta  to  order  the  perforated  candles." 

"  Perforated  —  ! "  said  Lydia  blankly,  pausing  at  the 
door. 

"  Yes ;  don't  you  remember,  the  last  time  Mrs.  Hollister 
called  here  she  told  us  all  about  them." 

"  No,  I  don't  remember,"  said  Lydia,  with  no  shade  of 
apology  in  her  tone. 

"  Why,  my  dear !  You're  getting  so  absent-minded ! 
Do  you  mean  to  say  you  didn't  take  in  anything  of  what 
she  was  talking  about?  It's  a  new  kind,  that  has  holes 
running  through  it  so  the  melted  wax  runs  down  the  in- 
side! Why,  we  were  talking  about  them  the  whole  time 
she  was  here  that  last  call." 

Lydia  opened  the  door,  observing  vaguely,  "  Oh,  yes ; 
I  do  seem  to  remember  something.  It  was  a  very  dull 
visit,  anyhow." 

Mrs.  Emery  returned  to  her  list,  pursing  up  her  lips  and 
wagging  her  head.  "  You'll  have  to  learn,  dearie,  that  it's 
little  details  like  that  that  make  the  difference  between 
success  and  failure." 

"  We  have  electric  light  and  gas,"  said  Lydia. 

Mrs.  Emery  looked  up  in  astonishment  and  a  little  vex- 


1 86  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ation.  She,  too,  had  nerves  these  days.  "  Why,  Lydia, 
what's  the  matter  with  you?  You  know  nobody  uses  those 
for  table  decoration." 

"  We  could,"  said  Lydia. 

"  Why,  my  dear  child,  I  never  knew  before  there  was  a 
contrary  streak  in  you,  like  your  father.  What  in  the 
world  possesses  you  all  of  a  sudden  to  object  to  candles?" 

"  It's  not  candles  —  it's  the  idea  of  —  Oh,  all  the  fuss 
and  bother,  when  everybody's  so  tired,  and  the  weather's 
so  hot,  and  it's  going  to  cost  too  much  anyhow." 

"  Well,  what  would  you  have  us  fuss  and  bother  about, 
if  not  over  having  everything  nice  when  we  entertain  ?  " 
Mrs.  Emery's  air  of  enforced  patience  was  strained. 

Lydia  surveyed  her  from  the  hall  in  silence.  "  That's 
just  it  —  that's  just  it,"  she  said  finally,  and  went  away. 

Mrs.  Emery  laid  down  her  pen  to  laugh  to  herself  over 
the  queer  ways  of  children.  "  They  begin  to  have  notions 
with  their  first  teeth,  and  I  suppose  they  don't  get  over 
them  till  their  first  baby  begins  to  teethe." 

When  Lydia  arrived  at  her  sister's  house,  she  found 
that  competent  housekeeper  engaged  in  mending  the  lace 
curtains  of  her  parlor.  She  had  about  her  a  battery  of 
little  ingenious  devices  to  which  she  called  Lydia's  atten- 
tion with  pride.  "  I've  taught  myself  lace-mending  just 
by  main  strength  and  awkwardness,"  she  observed,  fitting 
a  hoop  over  a  torn  place,  "  and  it's  not  because  I  have 
any  natural  knack,  either.  If  there's  anything  I  hate  to 
do,  it's  to  sew.  But  these  curtains  do  go  to  pieces  so. 
I  wash  them  myself,  to  be  careful,  but  they  are  so  fine. 
Still,"  she  cast  a  calculating  eye  on  the  work  before  her, 
"  I'll  be  through  by  the  end  of  this  week,  anyhow  —  if 
that  new  Swede  will  only  stay  in  the  kitchen  that  long ! " 

She  bent  her  head  over  her  work  again,  holding  it  up 
to  the  light  from  time  to  time  and  straining  her  eyes  to 
catch  the  exact  thread  with  her  almost  impalpably  fine 
needle.  Lydia  sat  and  fanned  herself,  looking  flushed 
and  tired  from  the  walk  in  the  heat,  and  listering  in 
silence  to  Mrs.  Mortimer's  account  of  the  various  happen- 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        187 

ings  of  her  household :  "  And  didn't  I  find  that  good- 
for-nothing  negro  wench  had  been  having  that  man  — 
and  goodness  knows  how  many  others  —  right  here  in  the 
house.  I  told  Ralph  I  never  would  have  another  nigger  — 
but  I  shall.  You  can't  get  anything  else  half  the  time. 
I  tell  you,  Lydia,  the  servant  problem  is  getting  to  be 
something  perfectly  terrible  —  it's  — " 

Lydia  broke  in  to  say,  "  Why  don't  you  buy  new  ones  ?  " 

Mrs.  Mortimer  paused  with  uplifted  needle  to  inquire 
wildly,  "  New  what?  " 

"  New  curtains,  instead  of  spending  a  whole  week  in 
hot  weather  mending  those." 

"  Good  gracious,  child !  Will  you  ever  learn  anything 
about  the  cost  of  living!  I  think  it's  awful,  the  way 
Father  and  Mother  have  let  you  grow  up !  Why,  it  would 
take  half  a  month's  salary  to  reproduce  these  curtains.  I 
got  them  at  a  great  bargain  —  but  even  then  I  couldn't 
afford  them,  Ralph  was  furious." 

"  You  could  buy  muslin  curtains  that  would  be  just  as 
pretty,"  suggested  Lydia. 

"  Why,  those  curtains  are  the  only  things  with  the  least 
distinction  in  my  whole  parlor!  They  save  the  room." 

"From  what?" 

"  From  showing  that  there's  almost  nothing  in  it  that 
cost  anything,  to  be  sure!  With  them  at  the  window,  it 
would  never  enter  people's  heads  to  think  that  I  upholstered 
the  furniture  myself,  or  that  the  pictures  are — " 

"  Why  shouldn't  they  think  so,  if  you  did  ? "  Lydia 
proffered  this  suggestion  with  an  air  of  fatigued  listless- 
ness,  which,  her  sister  thought,  showed  that  she  made  it 
"  simply  to  be  contrary."  Acting  on  this  theory,  she  an- 
swered it  with  a  dignified  silence. 

There  was  a  pause.  Lydia  tilted  her  head  back  against 
the  chair,  and  looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  new  green 
leaves  of  the  piazza  vine.  Mrs.  Mortimer's  thin,  white, 
rather  large  hands  drew  the  shining  little  needle  back  and 
forth  with  a  steady,  hurrying  industry.  It  came  into  her 
mind  that  their  respective  attitudes  were  symbolical  of 


1 88  The  Squirrel-Cage 

their  lives,  and  she  thought,  glancing  at  Lydia's  drooping 
depression,  that  it  would  be  better  for  her  if  she  were 
obliged  to  work  more.  "  Work,"  of  course,  meant  to  Mari- 
etta those  forms  of  activity  which  rilled  her  own  life.  "I 
never  have  any  time  for  notions,"  she  thought,  the  des- 
perate, hurrying,  straining  routine  of  her  days  rising  before 
her  and  moving  her,  as  always,  to  rebellion  and  yet  to  a 
martyr's  pride. 

Lydia  stirred  from  her  listless  pose  and  came  over  to 
her  sister,  sitting  down  on  a  stool  at  her  feet.  "  Marietta, 
dear,  please  let  me  talk  to  you.  I'm  so  miserable  these 
days  —  and  Mother  won't  let  me  say  a  word  to  her.  She 
says  it's  spring  fever,  and  being  engaged,  and  the  end  of 
the  season,  and  everything.  Please,  please  be  serious,  and 
let  me  tell  you  about  it,  and  see  if  you  can't  help  me." 

Her  tone  was  so  broken  and  imploring  that  Mrs.  Mor- 
timer was  startled.  She  was,  moreover,  flattered  that 
Lydia  should  come  to  her  for  advice  rather  than  to  her 
parents.  She  put  her  arm  around  her  sister's  shoulders, 
and  said  gently,  "Why,  yes,  dear;  of  course;  anything — " 

"  Then  stop  sewing  and  listen  to  me  — " 

"  But  I  can  sew  and  listen,  too." 

"Oh,  Etta,  please!  That's  just  the  kind  of  thing  that 
gets  me  so  wild.  Just  a  little  while ! " 

The  harassed  housekeeper  cast  an  anxious  eye  on  the 
clock,  but  loyally  stifled  the  sigh  with  which  she  laid  her 
work  aside.  Lydia  apologized  for  interrupting  her.  "  But 
I  do  want  you  to  really  think  of  what  I  am  saying.  Every- 
body's always  so  busy  thinking  about  things!  Oh,  Etta, 
I'm  just  as  unhappy  as  I  can  be  —  and  so  scared  when  I 
think  about  —  about  the  future." 

Mrs.  Mortimer's  face  softened  wonderfully.  She  stroked 
Lydia's  dark  hair.  "Why,  poor  dear  little  sister!  Yes, 
yes,  darling,  I  know  all  about  it.  I  felt  just  so  myself  the 
month  before  I  was  married,  and  Mother  couldn't  help 
me  a  bit.  Either  she  had  forgotten  all  about  it,  or  else 
she  never  had  the  feeling.  I  just  had  to  struggle  along 
through  without  anybody  to  help  me  or  to  say  a  word. 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        189 

Oh,  I'm  so  glad  I  can  help  my  little  sister.  Don't  be 
afraid,  dear !  There's  nothing  so  terrible  about  it ;  nothing 
to  be  scared  of.  Why,  once  you  get  used  to  it  you  find 
it  doesn't  make  a  bit  of  difference  to  you.  Everything's 
just  the  same  as  before." 

Lydia  lifted  a  wrinkled  brow  of  perplexity  to  this  sooth- 
ing view  of  matrimony.  "  I  don't  know  what  you're  talk- 
ing about,  Etta ! "  she  cried  in  a  bewilderment  that  seemed 
to  strike  her  as  tragic. 

"  Why  —  why,  being  married !  Wasn't  that  what  you 
meant?" 

"  Oh,  no!  'No!  Nothing  so  definite  as  that!  I  couldn't 
be  afraid  of  Paul  —  why  should  I  be?  I'm  just  frightened 
of  —  everything  —  what  everybody  expects  me  to  do,  and 
to  go  on  doing  all  my  life,  and  never  have  any  time  but 
to  just  hurry  faster  and  faster,  so  there'll  be  more 
things  to  hurry  about,  and  never  talk  about  anything  but 
things!"  She  began  to  tremble  and  look  white,  and 
stopped  with  a  desperate  effort  to  control  herself,  though 
she  burst  out  at  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Mortimer's  face  of 
despairing  bewilderment,  "  Oh,  don't  tell  me  you  don't  see 
at  all  what  I  mean.  I  can't  say  it!  But  you  must  under- 
stand! Can't  we  somehow  all  stop  —  now!  And  start 
over  again!  You  get  muslin  curtains  and  not  mend  your 
lace  ones,  and  Mother  stop  fussing  about  whom  to  invite 
to  that  party  —  that's  going  to  cost  more  than  he  can  afford, 
Father  says  —  it  makes  me  sick  to  be  costing  him  so  much. 
And  not  fuss  about  having  clothes  just  so  —  and  Paul 
have  our  house  built  little  and  plain,  so  it  won't  be  so  much 
work  to  take  care  of  it  and  keep  it  clean.  I  would  so 
much  rather  look  after  it  myself  than  to  have  him  kill 
himself  making  money  so  I  can  hire  maids  that  you  can't  — 
you  say  yourself  you  can't  —  and  never  having  any  time  to 
see  him.  Perhaps  if  we  did,  other  people  might,  and  we'd 
all  have  more  time  to  like  things  that  make  us  nicer  to 
like—" 

At  this  perturbing  jumble  of  suggestions,  Mrs.  Mor- 
timer's head  whirled.  She  took  hold  of  the  arms  of  her 


190  The  Squirrel-Cage 

chair  as  if  to  steady  herself,  but,  conscientiously  afraid 
of  discouraging  the  girl's  confidence,  she  nodded  gravely 
at  her,  as  if  she  were  considering  the  matter.  Lydia  sprang 
up,  her  eyes  shining.  "  Oh,  you  dear !  You  do  see  what 
I  mean!  You  see  how  dreadful  it  is  to  look  forward  to 
just  that  —  being  so  desperately  troubled  over  things  that 
don't  really  matter  —  and  —  and  perhaps  having  children, 
and  bringing  them  up  to  the  same  thing  —  when  there  must 
be  so  many  things  that  do  matter ! " 

To  each  of  these  impassioned  statements  her  sister  had 
returned  an  automatic  nod.  "  I  see  what  you  mean,"  she 
now  put  in,  a  statement  which  was  the  outward  expression 
of  a  thought  running,  "  Mercy !  Dr.  Melton's  right !  She's 
perfectly  wild  with  nerves!  We  must  get  her  married  as 
soon  as  ever  we  can !  " 

Lydia  went  over  to  the  window,  and  stood  looking  out 
as  she  talked,  now  with  an  excited  haste,  now  with  a  drag- 
ging note  of  fatigue  in  her  voice.  Her  need  of  sympathy 
was  so  great  that  she  did  a  violence  to  the  reticence  she 
had  always  kept,  even  with  herself.  She  wondered  aloud 
if  it  were  not  perhaps  Daniel  Rankin  and  his  queer  ideas 
that  lay  at  the  bottom  of  her  trouble.  She  added,  whirling 
about  from  the  window,  "  For  mercy's  sake !  don't  go  and 
think  I  am  in  love  with  him,  or  anything!  I  haven't  so 
much  as  thought  of  him  all  winter !  I  see,  now  that  Mother's 
pointed  it  out  to  me,  how  domineering  he  really  was  to  me 
last  autumn.  I'm  just  crazy  about  Paul,  too!  When  I'm 
with  him  he  takes  my  breath  away!  But  maybe  —  maybe 
I  can't  forget  Mr.  Rankin's  ideas!  You  know  he  talked 
to  me  so  much  when  I  was  first  back  —  and  if  somebody 
would  just  argue  me  out  of  them,  the  way  he  did  into  them! 
I  don't  believe  I'd  ever  have  thought  it  queer  to  live  the 
way  we  do,  just  to  have  more  things  and  get  ahead  of  other 
people  —  if  he  hadn't  put  the  idea  into  my  head.  But 
nobody  else  will  even  talk  about  it!  They  laugh  when  I 
try  to." 

She  came  over  closer  to  the  matron,  and  said  imploringly, 
her  voice  trembling,  "  I  don't  want  to  be  queer,  Marietta ! 


Card-Dealing  and  Patent  Candles        191 

What  makes  me?  I  don't  like  to  have  queer  ideas,  dif- 
ferent from  other  people's  —  but  every  once  in  a  while  it 
all  comes  over  me  with  a  rush  —  what's  the  good  of  all 
we  do?" 

Poor  Lydia  propounded  this  question  as  though  it  were 
the  first  time  in  the  world's  history  that  it  had  passed  the 
lips  of  humanity.  Her  curious,  puzzled  distress  rose  up  in 
a  choking  flood  to  her  throat,  and  she  stopped,  looking  des- 
perately at  her  sister. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  nodded  again,  calmly,  drew  a  long  breath, 
and  seemed  about  to  speak.  Lydia  gazed  at  her,  her  cheeks 
flushed,  her  eyes  bright  with  unshed  tears  —  all  one  eager 
expectancy.  The  older  woman's  eyes  wandered  suddenly 
for  an  instant.  She  darted  forward,  clapped  her  hands 
together  once,  and  then  in  rapid  succession  three  or  four 
times.  Then  rolling  triumphantly  something  between  her 
thumb  and  forefinger,  she  turned  to  Lydia.  The  little 
operation  had  not  taken  the  third  of  a  moment,  but  the 
change  in  the  girl's  face  was  so  great  that  Mrs.  Mortimer 
was  moved  to  hasty,  half-shamefaced,  half-defiant  apology. 
"  I  was  listening  to  you,  Lydia !  I  zvas  listening !  But  it's 
just  the  time  of  year  when  they  lay  their  eggs,  and  I  have 
to  fight  them.  Last  year  my  best  furs  and  Ralph's  dress 
suit  were  perfectly  riddled!  You  know  we  can't  afford 
new." 

Lydia  rose  in  silence  and  began  pinning  on  her  hat.  Her 
sister,  for  all  her  vexation  over  the  ending  of  the  interview, 
could  hardly  repress  a  smile  of  superior  wisdom  at  the 
other's  face  of  tragedy.  "  Don't  go,  Lyddie,  don't  go ! " 
She  tried  to  put  her  arms  around  the  flighty  young  thing. 
"  Oh,  dear  Lydia,  cultivate  your  sense  of  humor !  That's 
all  that's  the  matter  with  you.  There's  nothing  el&e! 
Look  here,  dear,  there  are  moths  as  well  as  souls  in  the 
world.  People  have  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  them, —  for 
everything,  don't  you  see  ?  " 

"They  look  out  for  moths,  all  right,"  said  Lydia  in  a 
low  tone.  She  submitted,  except  for  this  one  speech,  in 
a  passive  silence  to  her  sister's  combination  of  petting  and 


192  The  Squirrel-Cage 

exhortation,  moving  quietly  toward  the  door,  and  stepping 
evenly  forward  down  the  walk. 

She  had  gone  down  to  the  street,  leaving  Mrs.  Mortimer 
still  calling  remorseful  apologies,  practical  suggestions,  and 
laughing  comments  on  her  "  tragedy  way  of  taking  the 
world."  At  the  gate,  she  paused,  and  then  came  back,  her 
face  like  a  mask  under  the  shadow  of  her  hat. 

Marietta  stood  waiting  for  her  with  a  quizzical  expres- 
sion. Under  her  appearance  of  lightly  estimating  Lydia's 
depression  as  superficial,  she  had  been  sensible  of  a  not 
unfamiliar  qualm  of  doubt  as  to  her  own  manner  of  life, 
an  uneasy  heaving  of  a  subconscious  self  not  always  pos- 
sible to  ignore ;  but,  as  was  her  resolute  custom,  she  forced 
to  the  front  that  perception  of  the  ridiculous  which  she 
had  urged  on  her  sister.  She  bit  her  lips,  to  conceal  a 
smile  at  Lydia's  mournful  emphasis  as  she  went  on :  "I 
forgot  to  tell  you,  Marietta,  what  I  was  sent  over  for. 
You're  to  be  sure  to  order  the  perforated  candles.  It's 
the  kind  that  has  holes  down  the  middle,  so  the  wax  doesn't 
look  mussy  on  the  outside,  and  it's  very,  very  important  to 
have  the  right  kind  of  candles." 

Mrs.  Mortimer,  willfully  amused,  looked  with  an  obsti- 
nate smile  into  her  sister's  troubled  eyes  as  Lydia  hesi- 
tated, waiting,  in  spite  of  herself,  for  the  understanding 
word. 

"  You're  a  darling,  Lyddie,"  said  the  elder  woman,  kiss- 
ing her  again ;  "  but  you  are  certainly  too  absurd ! " 


BOOK  III 
A  SUITABLE  MARRIAGE 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
TWO  SIDES  TO  THE  QUESTION 

LYDIA'S  unmarried  life  had  given  her  but  few  abstract 
ideas  for  the  regulation  of  conduct,  and  fewer  still  ideals 
of  self-discipline,  but  chief  among  the  small  assortment  that 
she  took  away  from  her  mother's  house  had  been  the  high 
morality  of  keeping  one's  husband  unworried  by  one's 
domestic  difficulties.  "  Domestic  difficulties "  meant,  ap- 
parently, anything  disagreeable  that  happened  to  one.  Not 
only  her  mother,  but  all  the  matrons  of  her  acquaintance 
had  concentrated  on  the  extreme  desirability  of  this  wifely 
virtue.  "  It  pays !  It  pays !  "  Mrs.  Emery  had  often  thus 
chanted  the  praises  of  this  quality  in  her  daughter's  pres- 
ence. "  I've  noticed  ever  so  many  times  that  men  who 
have  to  worry  about  domestic  machinery  and  their  children 
don't  get  on  so  well.  Their  minds  are  distracted.  Their 
thoughts  can't  be,  in  the  nature  of  things,  all  on  their  busi- 
ness." She  was  wont  to  go  on,  to  whatever  mother  she 
was  addressing,  "  We  know,  my  dear  Mrs.  Blank,  don't 
we,  how  perfectly  distracting  the  problems  are  in  bringing 
up  children  —  to  say  nothing  of  servants.  How  much 
energy  would  men  have  for  their  own  affairs  if  they  had 
to  struggle  as  we  do,  I'd  like  to  know!  Besides,  if  one 
person's  got  to  be  bothered  with  such  things,  she  might 
as  well  do  it  all  and  be  done  with  it.  It's  easier,  besides, 
to  have  only  one  head.  Men  that  interfere  about  things 

J93 


194  The  Squirrel-Cage 

in  the  house  are  an  abomination.  You  can't  keep  from 
quarreling  with  them  —  angels  couldn't." 

She  had  once  voiced  this  universally  recognized  maxim 
before  Dr.  Melton,  who  had  cut  in  briskly  with  a  warm 
seconding  of  her  theory.  "  Yes,  indeed ;  in  the  course  of 
my  practice  I  have  often  thought,  as  you  do,  that  it  would 
be  easier  all  around  if  husbands  didn't  board  with  their 
wives  at  all." 

Mrs.  Emery  had  stared  almost  as  blankly  as  Mrs.  Sand- 
worth  herself  might  have  done.  "  I  never  said  such  a  crazy 
thing,"  she  protested. 

"  Didn't  you  ?  Perhaps  I  don't  catch  your  idea  then.  It 
seemed  to  be  that  every  point  of  contact  was  sure  to  be 
an  occasion  for  friction  between  husband  and  wife,  and  so, 
of  course,  the  fewer  they  were  — " 

"  Oh,  bother  take  you,  Marius  Melton ! "  Mrs.  Emery 
had  quite  lost  patience  with  him.  "  I  was  just  saying  some- 
thing that's  so  old,  and  has  been  said  so  often,  that  it's 
a  bromide,  actually.  And  that  is  that  it's  a  poor  wife  who 
greets  her  tired  husband  in  the  evening  with  a  long  string 
of  tales  about  how  the  children  have  been  naughty  and 
the  cook — " 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes ;  now  I  see.  Of  course.  The  happiest 
ideal  of  American  life,  a  peaceful  exterior  presented  to  the 
husband  at  all  costs,  and  the  real  state  of  things  kept  from 
him  because  it  might  interfere  with  his  capacity  to  pull 
off  a  big  deal  the  next  day." 

Mrs.  Emery  had  boggled  suspiciously  at  this  version  of 
her  statement,  but  finding,  on  the  whole,  that  it  represented 
fairly  enough  her  idea,  had  given  a  qualified  assent  in  the 
shape  of  silence  and  a  turning  of  the  subject. 

Lydia  had  not  happened  to  hear  that  conversation,  but 
she  heard  innumerable  ones  like  it  without  Dr.  Melton's 
footnotes.  On  her  wedding  day,  therefore,  she  conceived 
it  an  essential  feature  of  her  duty  toward  Paul  to  keep 
entirely  to  herself  all  of  the  dismaying  difficulties  of  house- 
keeping and  keeping  up  a  social  position  in  America.  She 
knew,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  they  would  be  dismaying. 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  195 

The  talk  of  all  her  married  friends  was  full  of  the  tragedies 
of  domestic  life.  It  had  occurred  to  her  once  or  twice 
that  it  was  an  odd,  almost  a  pathetic,  convention  that  they 
tried  to  maintain  about  their  social  existence  —  a  picture  of 
their  lives  as  running  smoothly  with  self-adjusting  machin- 
ery of  long-established  servants  and  old  social  traditions: 
when  their  every  word  tragically  proclaimed  the  exhausting 
and  never-ending  personal  effort  that  was  required  to  give 
even  the  most  temporary  appearance  of  that  kind.  "  We 
all  know  what  a  fearful  time  everybody  has  trying  to  give 
course  dinners  —  why  need  we  pretend  we  don't  ?  "  she  had 
thought  on  several  painful  occasions ;  but  this,  like  many  of 
her  fancies,  was  a  fleeting  one.  There  had  been  as  little 
time  since  her  wedding  day  as  before  it  for  leisurely  specu- 
lation. The  business  of  being  the  bride  of  a  season  had 
been  quite  as  exciting  and  absorbing  as  being  the  debutante. 

The  first  of  February,  six  months  after  her  marriage, 
found  her  as  thin  and  restlessly  active  as  she  had  been  on 
that  date  a  year  before.  It  was  at  that  time  that  she  had 
the  first  intimation  of  a  great  change  in  her  life,  and  since 
the  one  or  two  obscure  and  futile  revolts  of  her  girlhood, 
nothing  had  moved  her  to  more  rebellious  unresignation 
than  the  fact  that  her  life  left  her  no  time  to  take  in  the 
significance  of  what  was  coming  to  her. 

"  Oh,  my  dear !  Isn't  it  too  good ! "  said  her  mother, 
clasping  her  for  a  moment  as  they  stood,  after  removing 
their  wraps,  in  the  dressing-room  of  a  common  acquaintance. 
"  Aren't  you  the  lucky,  lucky  thing !  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  don't  know  a  thing  about  it,"  Lydia 
returned  unexpectedly,  though  her  face  had  turned  a  deep 
rose,  and  she  had  smiled  tremulously.  "  Ever  since  Dr. 
Melton  told  me  it  was  probably  so,  I've  been  trying  to  get 
a  moment's  time  to  think  it  over,  but  you — " 

"  It's  something  to  feel,  not  to  think  about ! "  cried  her 
mother.  "  You  don't  need  time  to  feel." 

"  But  I'd  like  to  think  about  everything ! "  cried  Lydia, 
as  they  moved  down  the  stairs.  "  I  get  things  wrong  just 
feeling  about  them.  But  I'm  not  quick  to  think,  and  I 


196  The  Squirrel-Cage 

never  have  any  time  —  they're  always  so  many  other  things 
to  do  and  to  think  about  —  the  dinner,  getting  Paul  off  in 
time  in  the  morning,  how  badly  the  washwomen  does  up 
the  table  linen—" 

"  Oh,  Lydia !  Why  will  you  be  so  contrary  ?  Every- 
body says  laundress  now !  " 

" — And  however  Paul  and  I  can  pay  back  all  the  social 
debts  we've  incurred  this  winter.  Everybody's  invited  us. 
It  makes  me  wild  to  think  of  how  we  owe  everybody." 

"  Oh,  you  can  give  two  or  three  big  receptions  this  spring 
and  clear  millions  off  the  list.  And  then  a  dinner  party 
or  two  for  the  more  exclusives.  You  won't  need  to  be  out 
of  things  till  June  —  with  the  fashion  for  loose-fitting  even- 
ing gowns ;  you're  so  slender.  And  you'll  be  out  again 
long  before  Christmas.  It's  very  fortunate  having  it  come 
at  this  time  of  year." 

Lydia  looked  rather  dazed  at  this  brisk  and  matter-of-fact 
disposing  of  the  matter,  and  seemed  about  to  make  a  com- 
ment, but  the  bell  rang  for  card-playing  to  begin  and  Mrs. 
Emery  hurried  to  her  table. 

Lydia  had  meant  to  ask  her  mother's  sympathy  about 
another  matter  that  for  the  time  was  occupying  her  own 
thoughts,  but  there  was  no  other  opportunity  for  further 
speech  between  them  during  the  card  party  —  Mrs.  Emery 
devoting  herself  with  her  usual  competent  energy  to  playing 
a  good  game.  She  played  much  better  bridge  than  did  either 
of  her  daughters.  She  liked  cards,  liked  to  excel  and  always 
found  easy  to  accomplish  what  seemed  to  her  worth  doing. 
Marietta  also  felt  that  to  avoid  being  "  queer  "  and  "  differ- 
ent "  one  had  to  play  a  good  hand,  but,  as  she  herself  con- 
fessed, it  made  her  "  sick  "  to  give  up  to  it  the  necessary 
time  and  thought.  As  for  Lydia,  she  got  rid  of  her  cards  as 
fast  as  possible,  as  if  with  the  deluded  hope  that  when 
they  were  all  played,  she  might  find  time  for  something  else. 
On  the  afternoon  in  question  her  game  was  more  unscien- 
tific than  usual.  Criticism  was  deterred  from  articulate 
expression  by  the  common  feeling  in  regard  to  her,  assidu- 
ously fostered  by  Flora  Burgess'  continuous  references  to 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  197 

her  in  Society  Notes  as  the  coming  social  ruler  of  Endbury's 
smart  set.  There  was  as  yet,  to  be  sure,  no  visible  indication 
whatever  of  such  a  capacity  on  Lydia's  part,  but  the  printed 
word  —  particularly  Miss  Burgess'  printed  word  —  was  not 
to  be  doubted.  Madeleine  Hollister,  however  (now  soon  to 
be  Madeleine  Lowdor),  was  no  respecter  of  personages,  past 
or  future.  At  the  appearance  of  an  especially  unexpected 
and  disappointing  card  from  her  sister-in-law's  hand,  she 
pounced  upon  her  with :  "  Lydia,  what  are  you  thinking 
about?" 

"  My  washwoman's  grandson,"  burst  out  Lydia,  laying 
down  her  cards  with  a  careless  negligence,  so  that  everyone 
could  see  the  contents  of  her  hand.  "  Oh,  Madeleine !  I'm 
so  worried  about  her,  and  I  wish  you'd  — " 

She  got  no  further.  Madeleine's  shriek  of  good-natured 
laughter  cut  her  short  like  a  blow  in  the  face.  The  other 
ladies  were  laughing,  too. 

"  Oh,  Lydia !  You  are  the  most  original,  unexpected 
piece  in  the  world ! "  cried  her  sister-in-law.  "  You'll  be 
the  death  of  me ! "  She  appealed  to  the  other  players  at 
their  table :  "  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  come  out  fun- 
nier?" 

To  the  players  at  the  next  tables,  who  were  looking  with 
vague,  reflected  smiles  at  this  burst  of  merriment,  she 
called:  "  Oh,  it's  too  killing!  Lydia  Hollister  just  played  a 
trump  on  a  trick  her  partner  had  already  taken,  and  when  I 
asked  what  in  the  world  she  was  thinking  about  —  meaning, 
of  course  — " 

Lydia  sat  silent,  looking  at  her  useless  cards  during  the 
rest  of  the  narration  of  her  comic  speech.  She  was  reflect- 
ing rather  sadly  that  she  had  been  very  foolish  to  think, 
even  in  a  thoughtless  impulse,  of  telling  Madeleine  the 
story  she  had  so  impetuously  begun.  After  a  time  it  came 
to  her,  as  a  commentary  of  the  little  incident,  that  neither 
could  she  get  anything  from  Marietta  in  the  matter.  At 
the  end  of  the  party,  she  and  her  mother  walked  together 
to  the  street-cars,  but  she  still  said  nothing  of  what  was 
in  her  mind.  She  would  not  admit  to  herself  that  her 


198  The  Squirrel-Cage 

mother  would  receive  it  as  she  felt  sure  Marietta  and 
Madeleine  would,  but  —  she  dared  not  risk  putting  her  to 
the  test.  It  was  a  period  in  Lydia's  life  when  she  was  con- 
stantly in  fear  of  tests  applied  to  the  people  she  loved  and 
longed  to  admire. 

During  the  half-hour's  noisy  journey  out  to  Bellevue  — 
the  unhackneyed  name  that  had  been  selected  for  the  new 
and  fashionable  suburb  she  inhabited  —  she  had  eliminated 
from  this  crisis  in  her  mind,  one  by  one,  all  the  people 
in  her  circle.  Dr.  Melton  was  out  of  town.  Otherwise 
she  would  have  gone  to  him  at  once.  Mrs.  Sandworth  with- 
out her  brother  was  a  cipher  with  no  figure  before  it.  Her 
father?  —  she  realized  suddenly  that  it  was  the  first  time 
she  had  ever  thought  of  going  to  her  father  with  a  per- 
plexity. No;  she  knew  too  little  about  his  view  of  things. 
She  had  never  talked  with  him  of  anything  but  the  happen- 
ings of  the  day.  Flora  Burgess  —  devoted  Flora?  Lydia 
smiled  ruefully  as  she  thought  of  the  attitude  Flora  Burgess 
would  be  sure  to  take. 

It  finally  came  to  the  point  where  there  was  no  one  left 
but  Paul ;  and  Paul  ought  not  to  be  worried  with  domestic 
questions  lest  his  capacity  for  business  be  impaired.  She 
had  a  deep  inculcated  sense  of  the  necessity  and  duty  of 
"  doing  her  share,"  as  the  phrase  had  gone  in  the  various 
exhortations  addressed  to  her  before  her  marriage.  The 
next  few  years  would  be  critical  ones  in  Paul's  career,  and 
the  road  must  be  straight  and  clear  before  his  feet  —  the 
road  that  led  to  Success.  No  one  had  voiced  a  doubt  that 
this  road  was  not  coincident  with  all  other  desirable  ones ; 
no  one  had  suggested  that  the  same  years  would  be  critical 
in  other  directions  and  would  be  certain  to  be  terribly  and 
irrevocably  determinative  of  his  future  relation  to  his  wife. 

Lydia,  ardently  and  naively  anxious  to  find  something 
"worth  doing,"  therefore  had  settled  on  this  one  definite 
duty.  She  had  wrestled  in  a  determined  silence  with  the 
many  incompetent  and  degenerate  negresses,  with  the  few 
impertinent  Americans,  with  the  drunken  Irish  and  insolent 
Swedes,  who  had  filed  in  and  out  of  her  kitchen  ever  since 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  199 

her  marriage.  Suburban  life  was  a  new  thing  in  Endbury, 
and  "  help  "  could  see  no  advantages  in  it.  She  had  strained 
every  nerve  to  make  them  appear  to  Paul,  as  well  as  to 
the  rest  of  the  world,  the  opposite  of  what  they  were ;  and 
to  do  herself,  furtively,  when  Paul  was  not  there,  those 
of  their  tasks  they  refused  or  neglected.  Every  effort  was 
concentrated,  as  in  her  mother's  and  sister's  households,  on 
keeping  a  maid  presentable  to  open  the  door  and  to  wait 
on  the  table,  rather  than  to  perform  the  heavier  parts  of 
the  daily  round.  Those  Lydia  could  do  herself,  or  she 
could  hire  an  unpresentable  older  scrubwoman  to  do  them. 
She  often  thought  that  if  she  could  but  employ  scrubwomen 
all  the  time,  the  problem  would  be  half  solved.  But  the 
achievement  of  each  day  was,  according  to  Endbury  stand- 
ards, to  keep  or  get  somebody  into  the  kitchen  who  could 
serve  a  course  dinner,  even  if  the  mistress  of  the  house 
was  obliged  to  prepare  it. 

She  had  never  dreamed  of  feeling  herself  aggrieved,  or 
even  surprised,  by  this  curious  reverse  side  to  her  outward 
brilliant  life.  All  her  married  friends  went  through  the 
same  experience.  Madeleine,  it  is  true,  announced  that 
she  was  going  to  make  Lowdor  import  two  Japanese  serv- 
ants a  year,  and  dismiss  them  when  they  began  to  get 
American  ideas;  but  Madeleine  was  quite  openly  marrying 
Lowdor  for  the  sake  of  this  and  similar  advantages.  Lydia 
felt  that  her  own  problems  were  only  the  usual  lot  of  her 
kind,  and  though  she  was  nearly  always  sick  at  heart  over 
them,  she  did  not  feel  justified  in  complaining  —  least  of 
all  to  Paul. 

But  this  present  trouble  —  this  was  not  just  a  question 
of  help.  For  the  last  month  they  had  been  floating  in  the 
most  unexpected  lull  of  the  domestic  whirlwind.  The  intel- 
ligence office  had  sent  out  Ellen  —  Ellen,  the  deft-handed 
cook,  the  silent,  self-effacing,  competent  servant  of  every 
housekeeper's  dreams.  Her  good  luck  seemed  incredible. 
Ellen  was  perfection,  was  middle-aged  and  settled,  never 
went  out  in  the  evenings,  kept  her  kitchen  spotlessly  clean, 
trained  the  rattle-headed  second  girls  who  came  and  went, 


2OO  The  Squirrel-Cage 

to  be  good  waitresses  and  made  pastry  that  moved  Paul, 
usually  little  preoccupied  about  his  food  provided  there  was 
plenty  of  meat,  to  lyric  raptures.  The  difference  she  made 
in  Lydia's  life  was  inconceivable.  It  was  as  though  some 
burdensome  law  of  nature  had  been  miraculously  suspended 
for  her  benefit.  She  gauged  her  past  discomfort  by  her 
present  comfort. 

And  yet  — 

From  the  first  Lydia  had  had  an  uneasy  feeling  in  the 
presence  of  her  new  servant,  a  haunting  impression  when 
her  back  was  turned  to  Ellen  that  if  she  could  turn  quickly 
enough,  she  would  see  her  cook  with  some  sinister  aspect 
quite  other  than  the  decent,  respectful  mask  she  presented 
to  her  mistress.  The  second  girl  of  the  present  was  a  fresh- 
faced,  lively  young  country  lass,  whom  Ellen  herself  had 
secured,  and  whose  rosy  child's  face  had  been  at  first  inno- 
cence itself;  but  now  sometimes  Lydia  overheard  them 
laughing  together,  a  laughter  which  gave  her  the  oddest  in- 
ward revulsion,  and  when  she  came  into  the  kitchen  quickly 
she  often  found  them  looking  at  books  which  were  quickly 
whisked  out  of  sight. 

And  then,  a  day  or  so  before,  old  Mrs.  O'Hern,  her  wash- 
woman, had  come  directly  to  her  with  that  revolting  revela- 
tion of  Ellen's  influence  on  her  grandson,  little  Patsy.  At 
the  recollection  of  the  old  woman's  face  of  embittered 
anguish,  Lydia  shuddered.  Oh,  if  she  could  only  tell  Paul ! 
He  was  so  loving  and  caressing  to  her  —  perhaps  he  would 
not  mind  being  bothered  this  once  —  she  did  not  know  what 
to  think  of  such  things  —  she  did  not  know  what  to  do, 
which  way  to  turn.  She  was  startled  beyond  measure  at 
having  real  moral  responsibility  put  on  her. 

Perhaps  Paul  could  think  of  something  to  do. 

He  was  waiting  for  her  when  she  entered  the  house,  hav- 
ing come  in  from  an  out-of-town  trip  on  an  earlier  train 
than  he  had  expected  to  catch.  He  dropped  his  newspaper 
and  sprang  up  from  his  chair  to  put  his  arms  about  her 
and  gloat  over  her  beauty.  "  You're  getting  prettier  every 
day  of  your  life,  Lydia,"  he  told  her,  ruffling  her  soft 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  201 

hair,  and  kissing  her  very  energetically  a  great  many  times. 
"  But  pale !  I  must  get  some  color  into  your  cheeks,  Melton 
says  —  how's  this  for  a  way  ?  " 

He  seemed  to  Lydia  very  boyish  and  gay  and  vital.  She 
caught  at  him  eagerly  —  he  had  been  away  from  home  three 
days  —  and  clung  to  him.  "  Oh,  Paul !  How  much  good 
it  does  me  to  have  you  here,  close !  You  are  so  much  nicer 
than  a  room  of  women  playing  the  same  game  of  cards 
they  began  last  September ! " 

Paul  shouted  with  laughter  —  his  pleasant,  hearty  mirth. 
"  I'm  appreciated  at  my  full  worth,"  he  cried. 

"  Oh,  how  I  loathe  cards ! "  cried  Lydia,  taking  off  her 
hat. 

"  It's  better  than  the  talk  you'd  get  from  most  of  the 
people  there,  I  bet,"  conjectured  Paul,  taking  up  his  news- 
paper again.  "  Cards  are  a  blessing  that  way,  compared 
with  conversation." 

"  Oh,  dear,  I  suppose  so !  "  Lydia  stopped  a  moment  in 
the  doorway.  "  But  doesn't  it  seem  a  pity  that  you  never 
see  anybody  but  people  who'd  bore  you  to  death  if  you 
didn't  stop  their  mouth  with  cards  ?  " 

"  That's  the  way  of  the  world,"  remarked  Paul  comfort- 
ably, returning  to  the  news  of  the  day. 

The  little  friendly  chat  gave  Lydia  courage  for  her  plan 
of  asking  her  husband's  advice  about  her  perplexity,  but, 
mindful  of  traditional  wisdom,  she  decided,  as  she  thriftily 
changed  her  silk  "  party  dress  "  for  a  house-gown  of  soft 
wool,  that  she  would  wait  until  the  mollifying  influence  of 
dinner  had  time  to  assert  itself.  She  wondered  fearfully, 
with  a  quick  throb  of  her  heart,  how  he  would  receive  her 
confidence.  When  she  called  him  to  the  table  she  looked 
searchingly  into  his  strong,  resolute,  good-natured  face,  and 
then,  dropping  her  eyes,  with  an  indrawn  breath,  began  her 
usual  fruitless  endeavors  to  learn  from  him  a  little  of  what 
had  occupied  his  day  —  his  long,  mysterious  day,  spent  in 
a  world  of  which  he  brought  back  but  the  scantiest  tidings 
to  her. 

As  usual,  to-night  he  shook  his  shoulders  impatiently  at 


2O2  The  Squirrel-Cage 

her  questioning.  "  Oh,  Lydia  darling,  don't  talk  shop ! 
I'm  sick  and  tired  of  it  after  three  days  of  nothing  else.  I 
want  to  leave  all  that  behind  me  when  I  come  home.  That's 
what  a  home  is  for ! " 

Lydia  did  not  openly  dissent  from  this  axiom,  though 
she  murmured  helplessly:  "  I  feel  so  awfully  shut  out.  It 
is  what  you  think  about  most  of  the  time,  and  I  do  not 
know  enough  about  it  even  to  imagine — " 

Paul  leaned  across  the  table  to  lay  an  affectionate  hand 
on  his  wife's  slim  fingers.  "  Count  your  mercies,  my  dear. 
It's  all  grab,  and  snap,  and  cutting  somebody's  throat  before 
he  has  a  chance  to  cut  yours.  It  wouldn't  please  you  if 
you  did  know  anything  about  it  —  the  business  world." 
He  drew  a  long  breath,  and  went  on  appreciatively  with  his 
cutlet  —  Lydia  had  learned  something  about  meats  since  the 
year  before  — "  You  are  a  very  good  provider,  little  girl ; 
do  you  know  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  love  to,"  said  Lydia.  She  added  reflectively : 
"  Wouldn't  it  be  nice  if  things  were  so  I  could  do  the  cook- 
ing myself  and  not  have  to  bother  with  these  horrible  crea- 
tures that  are  all  you  can  get  usually  ?  " 

Paul  laughed  at  the  fancy.  "  That's  a  high  ambition  for 
my  wife,  I  must  say ! " 

"  We'd  have  better  things  to  eat  even  than  Ellen  gives 
us,"  said  Lydia  pensively.  "  If  I  had  a  little  more  time  to 
put  on  it,  I  could  do  wonders,  I'm  sure  of  it." 

"  I  don't  doubt  that,"  said  her  husband  gallantly ;  "  but 
did  you  ever  know  anybody  who  was  her  own  cook?" 

"  Well,  not  except  in  between  times,  when  they  couldn't 
get  anybody  else,"  confessed  Lydia.  "  But  lots  of  people 
I  know  who  do  go  through  the  motions  of  keeping  one 
would  be  better  off  without  one.  They  can't  afford  it,  and 
—  Oh,  I  wish  we  were  poorer !  " 

Paul  was  highly  amused  by  this  flight  of  fancy.  "  But 
we're  as  poor  as  poverty  already,"  he  reminded  her. 

"  We're  poor  for  buying  hundred-dollar  broadcloth  tailor- 
made  suits  for  me,  and  cut  glass  for  the  table,  but  we'd 
have  plenty  if  I  could  wear  ready-made  serge  at  — " 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  203 

Paul  laughed  outright.  "  Haven't  you  ever  noticed,  my 
dear,  that  the  people  who  wear  ready-made  serge  are  the 
ones  who  could  really  comfortably  afford  to  wear  calico 
wrappers?  It  goes  right  up  and  down  the  scale  that  way 
Everybody  is  trying  to  sing  a  note  above  what  he  can." 

"  I  know  it  does  —  but  does  it  have  to  ?  Wouldn't  it  be 
better  if  everybody  just  —  why  doesn't  somebody  begin — " 

"  It's  the  law  of  progress,  of  upward  growth,"  pronounced 
Paul. 

Lydia  was  impressed  by  the  pontifical  sound  of  this, 
though  she  ventured  faintly :  "  Well,  but  does  progress 
always  mean  broadcloth  and  cut  glass?" 

"  We  have  the  wherewithal  to  cultivate  our  minds ! " 
said  Paul,  laughing  again.  "  Weren't  the  complete  works 
of  the  American  essayists  among  our  wedding  presents !  " 
He  referred  to  an  old  joke  between  them,  at  which  Lydia 
laughed  loyally,  and  the  talk  went  on  lightly  until  the  meal 
was  over. 

As  they  walked  away  from  the  table  together  Lydia  said 
to  herself,  "  Now  —  now  — "  but  Paul  began  to  laugh  as 
he  told  an  incident  of  Madeleine's  light-hearted,  high-handed 
tyranny  over  her  elderly  fiance,  and  it  seemed  impossible 
for  Lydia  to  bring  out  her  story  of  mean  and  ugly  tragedy. 

As  usual  the  evening  was  a  lively  one.  Some  acquaint- 
ances from  the  "  younger  married  set "  of  Bellevue  dropped 
in  for  a  game  of  cards,  Madeleine  and  "  old  Pete  "  Lowdor 
came  out  to  talk  over  the  plans  for  their  new  handsome 
house  at  the  end  of  the  street  and  at  Paul's  suggestion 
Lydia  hastily  got  together  a  chafing-dish  supper  for  the 
impromptu  party  which  prolonged  itself  with  much  laughter 
and  many  friendly  wranglings  over  trumps  and  "  post- 
mortems "  until  after  midnight.  Paul  was  in  the  highest 
of  gay  spirits  as  he  stood  with  his  pretty  wife  on  the  porch, 
calling  good-nights  to  his  guests  disappearing  down  the  star- 
lit driveway.  He  inhaled  the  odor  of  success  sweet  and 
strong  in  his  nostrils. 

As  they  looked  back  into  the  house,  they  saw  the  faithful 
Ellen  clearing  away  the  soiled  dishes,  her  large,  white,  dis- 


3O4  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ease-scarred  face  impassive  over  her  immaculate  and  correct 
maid's  dress. 

"  Isn't  she  a  treasure ! "  cried  the  master  of  the  house. 
"  To  sit  up  to  this  hour !  "  He  started,  "  What's  that  ?  " 

From  the  shadow  of  the  house  a  slim  lad's  figure  sham- 
bled out  into  the  driveway.  As  he  passed  the  porch  where 
Paul  stood,  one  strong  arm  protectingly  about  Lydia,  he 
looked  up  and  the  light  from  the  open  door  struck  full  on 
a  white,  purposeless,  vacant  smile.  The  upward  glance  lost 
for  him  the  uncertain  balance  of  his  wavering  feet.  He 
reeled,  flung  up  his  arms  and  pitched  with  drunken  sodden- 
ness  full  length  upon  the  gravel,  picking  himself  up  clumsily 
with  a  sound  of  incoherent,  weak  lament.  "  Why,  it's  a 
drunken  man  —  in  our  driveway!"  cried  Paul,  with  pro- 
prietary indignation.  "  Get  out  of  here !  "  he  yelled  angrily 
at  the  intruder's  retreating  back.  When  he  turned  again  to 
Lydia  he  saw  that  one  of  her  lightning-swift  changes  of 
mood  had  swept  over  her.  He  was  startled  at  her  pale 
face  and  burning,  horrified  eyes,  and  remembering  her  con- 
dition with  apprehension,  picked  her  up  bodily  and  carried 
her  up  the  stairs  to  their  bedroom,  soothing  her  with  reas- 
suring caresses. 

There,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  their  bed,  her  loosened  hair 
falling  about  her  white  face,  holding  fast  to  her  husband's 
hands,  Lydia  told  him  at  last;  hesitating  and  stumbling 
because  in  her  blank  ignorance  she  knew  no  words  even 
to  hint  at  what  she  feared  —  she  told  him  who  Patsy  was, 
the  blue-eyed,  fifteen-year-old  boy,  just  over  from  Ireland, 
ignorant  of  the  world  as  a  child  of  five,  easily  led,  easily 
shamed,  by  his  fear  of  appearing  rustic,  into  any  excess  — 
and  then  she  told  him  what  the  boy's  grandmother  had  told 
her  about  Ellen.  It  was  a  mile-stone  in  their  married  life, 
her  turning  to  him  more  intimately  than  she  would  have 
done  to  her  mother,  her  breaking  down  the  walls  of  her 
life-long  maiden's  reserve  and  ignorance.  She  finished  with 
her  face  hidden  in  his  breast.  What  should  she  do  ?  What 
could  she  do? 

Paul  took  her  into  the  closest  embrace,  kissed  her  shut 


Two  Sides  to  the  Question  205 

eyes  in  a  passion  of  regret  that  she  should  have  learned  the 
evil  in  the  world,  of  relieved  belittling  of  the  story,  Lydia's 
portentous  beginning  of  which  had  quite  startled  him,  and 
of  indignation  at  "Mrs.  O'Hern's  foul  mouth — for  you 
can  just  be  sure,  darling  Lydia,  that  it's  all  nothing  but 
rowings  among  the  servants.  Probably  Ellen  won't  let  Mrs. 
O'Hern  take  her  usual  weekly  perquisite  of  sugar  and  tea. 
Servants  are  always  quarreling  and  the  only  way  to  do  is 
to  keep  out  of  their  lies  about  each  other  and  let  them  fight 
it  out  themselves.  You  never  can  have  any  idea  of  who's 
telling  the  truth  if  you  butt  in  and  try  to  straighten  it, 
and  the  Lord  knows  that  Ellen's  too  good  a  cook  and  too 
much  needed  in  this  family  until  the  new  member  arrives 
safely,  to  hurt  her  feelings  with  investigating  any  of  Mrs. 
O'Hern's  yarns.  Just  you  refuse  to  listen  to  servants'  gos- 
sip. If  you'd  been  a  little  less  of  a  darling,  inexperienced 
school-girl,  you'd  have  cut  off  such  talk  at  the  first  words. 
Just  you  take  my  word  for  it,  you  dear,  you  sweetheart, 
you  best  of  — "  he  ran  on  into  ardent  endearments,  forget- 
ting the  story  himself,  blinding  and  dazzling  Lydia  with 
the  excitement  which  always  swept  her  away  in  those  mo- 
ments when  Paul  was  her  passionate,  youthful  lover. 

She  tried  to  revert  to  the  question  once  or  twice  later, 
but  now  Paul  alternated  between  shaming  her  laughingly 
for  her  gullibility  and  making  fun  of  her  "  countrified  " 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  her  servants.  "  But,  Paul,  Mrs. 
O'Hern  says  that  Patsy  doesn't  want  to  drink  and  —  and  go 
to  those  awful  houses  —  his  father  died  of  it  —  only  Ellen 
makes  him,  by — " 

Paul  tried  to  close  the  discussion  with  a  little  impatience 
at  her  attempt  to  press  the  matter.  "  Every  Irish  boy  drinks 
more  or  less,  you  little  goose.  That's  nothing!  Of  course 
it's  too  bad  to  have  you  see  a  drunken  man,  but  it's  nothing 
so  tragic.  If  he  didn't  drink  here,  he  would  somewhere 
else.  The  only  thing  we  have  to  complain  about  that  I  can 
see,  is  having  the  cook's  followers  drunk  —  but  Ellen's  such 
a  miracle  of  competence  we  must  overlook  that.  As  for 
the  rest  of  Mrs.  O'Hern's  dirty  stories,  they're  spite  work 


206  The  Squirrel- Cage 

evidently."  As  Lydia  looked  up  at  him,  her  face  still  anx- 
ious and  drawn,  he  ended  finally,  "  Good  gracious,  Lydia, 
don't  you  suppose  I  know  —  that  my  experience  of  the 
world  has  taught  me  more  about  human  nature  than  you 
know?  You  act  to  me  as  though  you  trusted  your  wash- 
woman's view  of  things  more  than  your  husband's.  And 
now  what  you  want  to  do,  anyhow,  is  to  get  some  rest. 
You  hop  into  bed,  little  rabbit,  and  go  to  sleep.  Don't  wait 
for  me ;  I've  got  a  lot  of  figuring  to  do." 

When  he  went  to  bed,  a  couple  of  hours  later,  Lydia  was 
lying  quietly  with  closed  eyes,  and  he  did  not  disturb  her ; 
but  afterward  he  woke  out  of  a  sound  sleep  and  sat  up 
with  a  sense  that  something  was  wrong.  He  listened. 
There  was  not  a  sound  in  the  room  or  in  the  house.  Ap- 
parently Lydia  was  not  wakened  by  his  startled  movement. 
She  lay  in  a  profound  immobility. 

But  something  about  her  very  motionlessness  struck  a 
chill  to  his  heart.  Women  in  her  condition  sometimes  had 
seizures  in  the  night,  he  had  heard.  With  a  shaking  hand, 
he  struck  a  match  and  leaned  over  her.  He  gave  a  loud, 
shocked  exclamation  to  see  that  her  eyes  were  open,  steady 
and  fixed,  like  wide,  dark  pools.  He  threw  the  match  away, 
and  took  her  in  his  arms  with  a  fond  murmur  of  endear- 
ments. "  Why,  poor  little  girl !  Do  you  lie  awake  and 
worry  about  what's  to  come  ?  " 

Lydia  drew  a  painful  breath.  "  Yes/'  she  said ;  "  I  worry 
a  great  deal  about  what's  to  come." 

He  kissed  her  gently,  ardently,  gently  again.  "  You 
mustn't  do  that,  darling!  You're  all  right!  Melton  said 
there  wasn't  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  anything  but  just 
the  most  temporary  illness,  without  any  complications.  It 
won't  be  so  bad  —  it'll  be  soon  over,  and  think  what  it 
means  to  us  —  dearest  —  dearest  —  dearest !  " 

Lydia  lay  quiet  in  his  arms.  She  had  been  still  so  long 
that  he  thought  her  asleep,  when  she  said,  in  a  whisper; 
"  I  hope  it  won't  be  a  girl !  " 


CHAPTER  XIX 
LYDIA'S  NEW  MOTTO 

LYDIA'S  two  or  three  big  receptions,  of  which  her  mother 
had  spoken  with  so  casual  a  confidence,  came  off,  while  not 
exactly  with  nonchalant  ease,  still,  on  the  whole,  creditably. 
It  is  true  that  Dr.  Melton  had  stormed  at  Lydia  one  sunny 
day  in  spring,  finding  her  bent  over  her  desk,  addressing 
invitations. 

"  It's  April,  child !  "  he  cried,  "  April !  The  crocuses  are 
out  and  the  violets  are  almost  here  —  and,  what  is  more 
important,  your  day  of  trial  gets  closer  with  every  tick  of 
the  clock.  Come  outdoors  and  take  a  walk  with  me." 

"  Oh,  I  can't !  "  Lydia  was  aghast  at  the  idea,  looking  at 
a  mountain  of  envelopes  before  her. 

"  Here !     I'll  help  you  finish  those,  and  then  we'll  — " 

"  No,  no,  no !  "  In  Lydia's  negation  was  a  touch  of  the 
irritation  that  was  often  during  these  days  in  her  attitude 
toward  her  godfather.  "  I  can't !  Please  don't  tease  me 
to!  The  curtains  to  the  spare  room  have  to  be  put  up, 
and  the  bed  draperies  somehow  fixed.  A  stray  dog  got  in 
there  when  he  was  wet  and  muddy  and  went  to  sleep  on 
my  best  lace  bedspread." 

Dr.  Melton  had  not  practiced  for  years  among  Endbury 
ladies  without  having  some  knowledge  of  them  and  a  cor- 
responding readiness  of  mind  in  meeting  the  difficulties  they 
declared  insurmountable.  "  I'll  buy  you  a  white  marseilles 
bedspread  on  our  way  back  from  the  walk,"  he  offered 
gravely. 

"  Oh,  I've  got  plenty  of  plain  white  ones,"  she  admitted 
incautiously,  "  but  they  don't  go  with  the  scheme  of  the 
room  —  and  the  first  reception's  only  two  days  off." 

207 


208  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Dr.  Melton  fixed  her  with  an  ironical  and  melancholy 
smile :  "  Now,  Lydia,  I  did  think  you  had  it  in  you  to  realize 
that  your  health  and  the  strength  of  your  child  are  worth 
more  than — " 

Lydia  sprang  up  and  confronted  him  with  an  apparent 
anger  of  face  and  accent  that  was  contradicted  by  her  trem- 
bling chin  and  suffused  eyes.  "  Oh,  go  away ! "  she  com- 
manded him,  shaking  her  head  and  motioning  him  off. 
"  Don't  talk  so  to  me !  I  can't  help  it  —  what  I  do ! 
Everything's  a  part  of  the  whole  system,  and  I'm  in  that 
up  to  my  neck  —  you  know  I  am.  If  that's  right,  why, 
everything's  all  right,  just  the  way  everybody  thinks  it  is. 
And  if  it's  wrong — "  She  caught  her  breath,  and  turned 
back  to  her  desk.  "  If  it's  wrong,  what  good  would  be  done 
by  little  dribbling  compromises  of  an  occasional  walk." 
She  sat  down  wearily,  and  leaned  her  head  on  her  hand. 
"  I  just  wish  you  wouldn't  keep  me  so  stirred  up  —  when 
I'm  trying  so  hard  to  settle  down !  " 

Dr.  Melton  seemed  to  divine  perfectly  the  significance 
of  this  incoherent  outbreak.  He  thrust  out  his  lips  iii  his 
old  grimace  that  denoted  emotion,  and  observed  the  speaker 
in  a  frowning  silence.  When  she  finished,  he  nodded : 
"  You  are  right,  Lydia,  I  do  no  good."  He  twirled  his  hat 
about  between  his  fingers,  looking  absently  into  the  crown, 
and  added,  "  But  you  must  forgive  me,  I  love  you  very 
dearly." 

Lydia  ran  over  to  him,  conscience-stricken.  He  took  her 
embrace  and  remorseful  kiss  quietly.  "  Don't  be  sorry, 
Lydia  dear.  You  have  just  shown  me,  as  in  a  flash  of  light- 
ning, how  much  more  powerful  a  grasp  on  reality  you  have 
than  I." 

Lydia  recoiled  from  him  with  an  outcry  of  exaspera- 
tion. "  I !  Why,  I'm  almost  an  idiot !  I  haven't  a  grasp 
on  anything!  I  can't  see  an  inch  before  my  nose.  I'm  in 
a  perfect  nightmare  of  perplexity  all  the  time  because  I 
can't  make  out  what  I'm  driving  at  —  or  ought  to  — " 

She  went  on  more  quietly,  with  a  reasoning  air :  "  Only 
look  here,  Godfather,  it  came  over  me  the  other  night,  when 


Lydia's  New  Motto  209 

I  couldn't  sleep,  that  perhaps  what's  the  trouble  with  me 
is  that  I'm  lazy!  I  believe  that's  it!  I  don't  want  to  work 
the  way  Marietta  does,  and  Mother  does,  and  even  Made- 
leine does  over  her  dresses  and  parties  and  things.  It  must 
be  I'm  a  shirk,  and  expect  to  have  an  easier  time  than  most 
people.  That  must  be  it.  What  else  can  it  be  ?  " 

The  doctor  made  no  protest  against  this  theory,  taking 
himself  off  in  a  silence  most  unusual  with  him.  Lydia  did 
not  notice  this ;  nor  did  she  in  the  next  two  or  three  months 
remark  that  her  godfather  took  quite  literally  and  obeyed 
scrupulously  her  exhortation  to  leave  her  in  peace. 

She  was  in  the  grasp  of  this  new  idea.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  in  phrasing  it  she  had  hit  upon  the  explanation  of  her 
situation  which  she  had  been  so  long  seeking,  and  it  was 
with  a  resolve  to  scourge  this  weakness  out  of  her  life  that 
she  now  faced  the  future. 

She  found  a  satisfaction  in  the  sweeping  manner  in  which 
this  new  maxim  could  be  applied  to  all  the  hesitations  that 
had  confused  her.  All  her  meditations  heretofore  had 
brought  her  nothing  but  uncertainty,  but  this  new  catch- 
word of  incessant  activity  drove  her  forward  too  resistlessly 
to  allow  any  reflections  as  to  whether  she  were  going  in 
the  right  direction.  She  yielded  herself  absolutely  to  that 
ideal  of  conduct  which  had  been  urged  upon  her  all  her 
life,  and  she  found,  as  so  many  others  find,  oblivion  to  the 
problems  of  the  spirit  in  this  resolute  refusal  to  recognize 
the  spirit.  It  was  perhaps  during  these  next  months  of  her 
life  that  she  most  nearly  approximated  the  Endbury  notion 
of  what  she  should  be. 

She  had  yielded  to  Paul  on  the  subject  of  the  cook  not 
only  because  of  her  timid  distrust  of  her  own  inexperienced 
judgment  but  because  of  her  intense  reaction  from  the  usual 
Endbury  motto  of  "  Husbands,  hands  off ! "  She  had 
wanted  Paul  to  be  interested  in  the  details  of  the  house  as 
she  hoped  to  know  and  be  interested  in  what  concerned 
him,  and  when  he  showed  his  interest  in  a  request  she  could 
not  refuse  it.  She  hoped  that  she  had  made  a  good  begin- 
ning for  the  habit  of  taking  counsel  with  each  other  on  all 


2io  The  Squirrel-Cage 

matters.  But  she  thought  and  hoped  and  reflected  very 
little  during  these  days.  She  was  enormously,  incredibly 
busy,  and  on  the  whole,  she  hoped,  successfully  so.  The 
receptions,  at  least,  went  off  very  well,  everybody  said. 

Dr.  Melton  did  not  see  his  goddaughter  again  until  he 
came  with  Mrs.  Sandworth  to  the  last  of  these  events. 
She  was  looking  singularly  handsome  at  that  time,  her  color 
high,  her  eyes  very  large  and  dark,  almost  black,  so  dilated 
were  the  pupils.  With  the  nicety  of  observation  of  a  man 
who  has  lived  much  among  women,  the  doctor  noticed  that 
her  costume,  while  effective,  was  not  adjusted  with  the 
exquisite  feeling  for  finish  that  always  pervaded  the  toilets 
of  her  mother  and  sister.  Lydia  was  trying  with  all  her 
might  to  make  herself  over,  but  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world  she  could  not  attain  the  prayerful  concentration  on 
the  process  of  attiring  herself,  characteristic  of  the  other 
women  of  her  family. 

"  She  forgot  to  put  the  barette  in  her  back  hair,"  mur- 
mured Mrs.  Sandworth  mournfully,  as  she  and  her  brother 
emerged  from  the  hand-shake  of  the  last  of  the  ladies  assist- 
ing in  receiving,  "  and  there  are  two  hooks  of  her  cuff 
unfastened,  and  her  collar's  crooked.  But  I  don't  dare 
breathe  a  word  to  her  about  it.  Since  that  time  before  her 
marriage  when  she — " 

"  Yes,  yes,  yes,"  her  brother  cut  her  short ;  "  don't  bring 
up  that  tragic  episode  again.  I'd  succeeded  in  forgetting 
it." 

"  You  can  call  it  tragic  if  you  like,"  commented  Mrs. 
Sandworth,  looking  about  for  an  escape  from  the  stranded 
isolation  of  guests  who  have  just  been  passed  along  from 
the  receiving  line ;  "  but  what  it  was  all  about  was  more 
than  I  ever  could — "  Her  eyes  fell  again  on  Lydia,  and 
she  lost  herself  in  a  sweet  passion  of  admiration  and  pride. 
"  Oh,  isn't  she  the  loveliest  thing  that  ever  drew  the  breath 
of  life !  Was  there  ever  anybody  else  that  could  look  so  as 
though  —  as  though  they  still  had  dew  on  them !  " 

She  went  on,  with  her  bold  inconsequence :  "  There  is  a 
queer  streak  in  her.  Sometimes  I  think  she  doesn't  care  — " 


Lydia's  New  Motto  211 

She  stopped  to  gaze  at  a  striking  costume  just  entering  the 
room. 

"  What  doesn't  she  care  about  ?  "  asked  the  doctor. 

Mrs.  Sandworth  was  concentrating  on  sartorial  details  as 
much  of  her  mind  as  was  ever  under  control  at  one  time, 
and,  called  upon  for  a  development  of  her  theory,  was  even 
more  vague  than  usual.  "  Oh,  I  don't  know  —  about  what 
everybody  cares  about." 

"  She's  likely  to  learn,  if  it's  at  all  catching,"  conjectured 
the  doctor  grimly,  looking  around  the  large,  handsome  room. 
An  impalpable  effluvium  was  in  the  air,  composed  of  the 
scent  of  flowers,  the  odor  of  delicate  food,  the  sounds  of 
a  discreetly  small  orchestra  behind  palms  in  the  hallway, 
the  rustling  of  silks,  and  the  pleasurable  excitement  of  the 
crowd  of  prosperous-looking  women,  pleasantly  elated  by 
the  opportunity  for  exhibiting  their  best  toilets. 

"  To  think  of  its  being  our  little  Lydia  who's  the  center 
of  all  this ! "  murmured  Mrs.  Sandworth,  her  loving  eyes 
glistening  with  affectionate  pride.  "  It  really  is  a  splendid 
scene,  isn't  it,  Marius  ?  " 

"If  they  were  all  gagged,  it  might  be.  Lord !  how  they 
yell!" 

"  Oh,  at  a  reception! "  Mrs.  Sandworth's  accent  denoted 
that  the  word  was  an  explanation.  "  People  have  to,  to 
make  themselves  heard." 

"  And  why  should  they  be  so  eager  to  accomplish  that  ?  " 
inquired  the  doctor.  "  Listen !  " 

Standing  as  they  were,  tightly  pressed  in  between  a  num- 
ber of  different  groups,  their  ears  were  assaulted  by  a  dis- 
jointed mass  of  stentorian  conversation  that  gave  a  singular 
illusion  as  if  it  all  came  from  one  inconceivably  voluble 
source,  the  individuality  of  the  voices  being  lost  in  the 
screaming  enunciation  which,  as  Mrs.  Sandworth  had 
pointed  out,  was  a  prerequisite  of  self-expression  under  the 
circumstances. 

They  heard :  " —  For  over  a  month  and  the  sleeves  were 
too  see  you  again  at  Mrs.  Elliott's  I'm  pouring  there  from 
four  I've  got  to  dismiss  one  with  little  plum-colored  bows 


212  The  Squirrel-Cage 

all  along  five  dollars  a  week  and  the  washing  out,  and  still 
impossible!  I  was  there  myself  all  the  time  and  they 
neither  of  thirty-five  cents  a  pound  for  the  most  ordinary 
ferns  and  red  carnations  was  all  they  had,  and  we  thought 
it  rather  skimpy  under  the  brought  up  in  one  big  braid 
and  caught  down  with  at  the  Peterson's  they  were  pink  and 
white  with — " 

"Oh,  no,  Madeleine!  that  was  at  the  Burlingame's." 
Mrs.  Sandworth  took  a  running  jump  into  the  din  and  sank 
from  her  brother's  sight,  vociferating:  "  The  Petersons  had 
them  of  old-gold,  don't  you  remember,  with  little  — " 

The  doctor,  worming  his  way  desperately  through  the 
masses  of  femininity,  and  resisting  all  attempts  to  engage 
him  in  the  vocal  fray,  emerged  at  length  into  the  darkened 
hall  where  the  air  was,  as  he  told  himself  in  a  frenzied  flight 
of  the  imagination,  less  like  a  combination  of  a  menagerie 
and  a  perfume  shop.  Here,  in  a  quiet  corner,  sat  Lydia's 
father,  alone.  He  held  in  one  hand  a  large  platter  piled 
high  with  wafer-like  sandwiches,  which  he  was  consuming 
at  a  Gargantuan  rate,  and  as  he  ate  he  smiled  to  himself. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Ogre,"  said  the  doctor,  sitting  down  beside 
him  with  a  gasp  of  relief ;  "  let  a  wave-worn  mariner  into 
your  den,  will  you?" 

Provided  with  an  auditor,  Judge  Emery's  smile  broke 
into  an  open  laugh.  He  waved  the  platter  toward  the  up- 
roar in  the  next  rooms :  "  A  boiler  factory  ain't  in  it  with 
woman,  lovely  woman,  is  it?"  he  put  it  to  his  old  friend. 

"  Gracious  powers !  There's  nothing  to  laugh  at  in  that 
exhibition ! "  the  doctor  reproved  him,  with  an  acrimonious 
savagery.  "  I  don't  know  which  makes  me  sicker ;  to  stay 
in  there  and  listen  to  them,  or  come  out  here  and  find  you 
thinking  they're  funny!" 

"  They  are  funny ! "  insisted  the  Judge  tranquilly.  "  I 
stood  by  the  door  and  listened  to  the  scraps  of  talk  I  could 
catch,  till  I  thought  I  should  have  a  fit.  I  never  heard 
anything  funnier  on  the  stage." 

"  Look-y  here,  Nat,"  the  doctor  stared  up  at  him  angrily, 
"  they're  not  monkeys  in  a  zoo,  to  be  looked  at  only  on  holi- 


Lydia's  New  Motto  213 

days  and  then  laughed  at!  They're  the  other  half  of  a 
whole  that  we're  half  of,  and  don't  you  forget  it!  Why  in 
the  world  should  you  think  it  funny  for  them  to  do  this  tom- 
fool trick  all  winter  and  have  nervous  prostration  all  sum- 
mer to  pay  for  it?  You'd  lock  up  a  man  as  a  dangerous 
lunatic  if  he  spent  his  life  so.  What  they're  like,  and  what 
they  do  with  their  time  and  strength  concerns  us  enough 
sight  more  than  what  the  tariff  is,  let  me  tell  you ! " 

"  I  admit  that  what  your  wife  is  like  concerns  you  a 
whole  lot !  "  The  Judge  laughed  good-naturedly  in  the  face 
of  the  little  old  bachelor.  "  Don't  commence  jumping  on 
the  American  woman  now !  I  won't  stand  it !  She's  the 
noblest  of  her  sex !  " 

"  Do  you  know  why  I  am  bald  ?  "  said  Dr.  Melton,  rub- 
bing his  hand  over  his  shining  dome. 

"  If  I  did,  I  wouldn't  admit  it,"  the  Judge  put  up  a  cau- 
tious guard,  "  because  I  foresee  that  whatever  I  say  will 
be  used  as  evidence  against  me." 

"  I've  torn  out  all  my  hair  in  desperation  at  hearing  such 
men  as  you  claim  to  admire  and  respect  and  wish  to  advance 
the  American  woman.  You  don't  give  enough  thought  to 
her  —  real  thought  —  from  one  year's  end  to  another  to 
know  whether  you  think  she  has  an  immortal  soul  or  not ! v 

"  Oh,  you  can't  get  anywhere,  trying  to  reason  about  those 
sort  of  things.  You  have  to  take  souls  for  granted.  Be- 
sides, I  give  her  as  fair  a  deal  in  that  respect  as  I  give 
myself,"  protested  Lydia's  father  reasonably,  smiling  and 
eating. 

"  There's  something  in  that,  now !  "  cried  his  interlocutor, 
with  an  odd  Celtic  lilt  which  sometimes  invaded  his  speech ; 
"  but  she  has  an  immortal  soul,  and  I'm  by  no  means  sure 
that  yours  is  still  inside  you." 

The  Judge  stood  up,  brushed  the  crumbs  of  his  stolen 
feast  from  his  well-fitting  broadcloth,  and  smiled  down  in- 
dulgently at  the  unquiet  little  doctor.  "  She's  all  right, 
Melton,  the  American  woman,  and  you're  an  unconscionably 
tiresome  old  fanatic.  That's  what  you  are!  Come  along 
and  have  a  glass  of  punch  with  me.  Lydia's  cook  has  a 


214  The  Squirrel-Cage 

genius  for  punch  —  and  for  sandwiches ! "  he  added  re- 
flectively, setting  down  the  empty  platter. 

Dr.  Melton  apparently  was  off  on  another  tangent  of 
excitability.  "  Did  you  ever  see  her  ?  "  he  demanded  with 
a  fiercely  significant  accent. 

The  Judge  made  a  humorous  wry  mouth.  "  Yes,  I  have ; 
but  what  concern  is  a  cook's  moral  character  to  her  employer 
any  more  than  an  engineer's  to  the  railroad — " 

"  Well,  it  mightn't  hurt  the  railroad  any  if  it  took  more 
cognizance  of  its  engineers'  morals — "  began  the  doctor 
dryly. 

The  Judge  cut  him  short  with  a  great  laugh.  "  Oh,  Mel- 
ton! Melton!  You  bilious  sophomore!  Take  a  vacation 
from  finding  everything  so  damn  tragic.  Take  a  drink  on 
me.  You're  all  right !  Everybody's  all  right !  " 

The  doctor  nodded.  "  And  the  reception  is  the  success 
of  the  season,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XX 
AN  EVENING'S  ENTERTAINMENT 

THE  dinner  parties,  so  Paul  told  Lydia  one  evening  a 
few  days  later,  would  certainly  be  as  successful  and  with 
but  little  more  trouble.  "  Just  think  of  the  dinners  Ellen's 
been  giving  us  for  the  last  two  months!  I  don't  believe 
there's  another  such  cook  in  Ohio  —  within  our  purse,  of 
course." 

Lydia  did  not  visibly  respond  to  this  enthusiasm.  Indeed, 
she  walked  away  from  the  last  half  of  it,  and  leaned  out 
of  a  window  to  look  up  at  the  stars.  When  she  came  back 
to  take  up  the  tiny  dress  on  which  she  was  sewing,  she  said : 
"  I  don't  think  I  can  stand  more  than  this  one  dinner  party, 
Paul.  I'm  sorry,  but  I  don't  feel  at  all  well,  and  this  dread- 
ful nausea  troubles  me  a  good  deal." 

"  Well,  you  look  lovelier  than  ever  before  in  your  life," 
Paul  reassured  her  tenderly,  and  felt  a  moment's  pique  that 
her  face  did  not  entirely  clear  at  this  all-important  announce- 
ment. "  Come,  let's  go  over  to  the  Derby's  for  a  game  of 
bridge,  will  you,  Lydia  ?  " 

This  conversation  took  place  on  a  Tuesday  late  in  May. 
The  dinner  party  was  set  for  Thursday.  On  Wednesday 
morning,  after  Paul's  usual  early  departure,  Lydia  went  to 
her  writing  desk  to  send  a  note  to  Madeleine  Hollister. 
Paul  had  intimated  that  she  and  Madeleine  were  seeing  less 
of  each  other  than  he  had  expected  from  their  girlhood 
acquaintance,  and  Lydia,  in  her  anxiety  to  induce  Paul  to 
talk  over  with  her  and  plan  with  her  the  growth  of  their 
home  life,  was  eager  to  adopt  every  casual  suggestion  he 
threw  out.  She  began,  therefore,  a  cordial  invitation  to 
Madeleine  to  spend  several  days  with  them.  She  would 
try  again  to  be  more  intimate  with  her  husband's  sister. 

215 


2i6  The  Squirrel-Cage 

She  had  not  inherited  her  mother's  housekeeping  eye, 
and  was  never  extremely  observant  of  details.  Being  more 
than  usually  preoccupied  this  morning,  she  had  no  suspicion 
that  someone  else  had  been  using  the  conveniences  for 
writing  on  her  desk  until  she  turned  over  the  sheet  of  paper 
on  which  she  had  begun  her  note,  and  saw  with  surprise 
that  the  other  side  was  already  covered  with  a  coarse  hand- 
writing, unfamiliar  to  her. 

As  she  looked  at  this  in  the  blankest  astonishment,  a 
phrase  leaped  out  at  her  comprehension,  like  a  serpent  strik- 
ing. And  then  another.  And  another. 

She  tried  to  push  back  her  chair  to  escape,  but  she  was 
like  a  person  paralyzed. 

With  returning  strength  to  move  came  an  overwhelming 
wave  of  nausea.  She  crept  up  to  her  own  room  and  lay 
motionless  and  soundless  for  hour  after  hour,  until  pres- 
ently it  was  noon,  and  the  pleasant  tinkling  of  gongs  an- 
nounced that  lunch  was  served. 

Lydia  rose,  and  made  her  way  down  the  stairs  to  the 
well-ordered  table,  set  with  the  daintiest  of  perfectly  pre- 
pared food,  and  stood,  holding  on  to  the  back  of  a  chair, 
while  she  rang  the  bell.  The  little  second  girl  answered  it  — 
one  of  the  flitting,  worthless,  temporary  occupants  of  that 
position. 

"  Tell  Ellen  to  come  here,"  said  her  mistress. 

At  the  appearance  of  the  cook,  Lydia's  white  face  went 
a  little  whiter.  "  Did  you  use  my  writing  desk  last  even- 
ing? "  she  asked. 

Ellen  looked  up,  her  large,  square-jawed  face  like  a  mask 
through  which  her  eyes  probed  her  mistress'  expression. 
"  Yes,  Mrs.  Hollister ;  I  did,"  she  said  in  the  admirable 
"  servant's  manner  "  she  possessed  to  perfection.  "  I  ought 
to  ask  your  pardon  for  doing  it  without  permission,  but 
someone  was  wanting  Mr.  Hollister  on  the  telephone,  and 
I  thought  best  to  sit  within  hearing  of  the  bell  until  you 
and  Mr.  Hollister  should  return,  and  as  — " 

"  You  left  part  of  your  letter  to  Patsy  O'Hern,"  said 


An  Evening's  Entertainment  217 

Lydia,  and  sat  down  suddenly,  as  though  her  strength  were 
spent. 

The  woman  opposite  her  flushed  a  purplish  red.  There 
was  a  long  silence.  Lydia  looked  at  her  servant  with  a  face 
before  which  Ellen  finally  lowered  her  eyes. 

"  I  am  sure,  Mrs.  Hollister,  if  you  don't  think  I'm  worth 
the  place,  and  if  you  think  you  can  manage  without  me 
to-morrow  night,  I'll  go  this  minute,"  she  said  coolly. 

Lydia  did  not  remove  her  eyes  from  the  other's  flushed 
face.  "You  must  go  far  away  from  Bellevue,"  she  said. 
"  You  must  not  take  a  place  anywhere  near  here." 

Ellen  looked  up  quickly,  and  down  again.  The  color 
slowly  died  out  of  her  face.  After  a  sullen  silence,  "  Yes," 
she  said. 

"  That  is  all,"  said  Lydia. 

Paul  found  his  wife  that  evening  still  very  white.  She 
explained  Ellen's  disappearance  with  a  dry  brevity.  "  That 
we  should  have  continued  to  give  that  —  that  awful  —  to 
give  her  opportunity  to  work  upon  a  boy  of — "  she  ended 
brokenly.  "  Suppose  he  had  been  my  brother !  " 

Paul  was  aghast.  "  But,  my  dear!  To-morrow  is  the 
night  of  the  dinner !  Couldn't  you  have  put  off  a  few  days 
this  sudden  fit  of — " 

Lydia  broke  from  her  white  stillness  with  a  wild  outcry. 
She  flung  herself  on  her  husband,  pressing  her  hands  on  his 
mouth  and  crying  out  fiercely :  "  No,  no,  Paul !  Not  that ! 
I  can't  bear  to  have  you  say  that !  I  hoped  —  I  hoped  you 
wouldn't  think  of  — " 

Paul  was  fresh  from  an  interview  with  Dr.  Melton,  and 
in  his  ears  rang  innumerable  cautions  against  excitement 
or  violent  emotions.  With  his  usual  competent  grasp  on  the 
essentials  of  a  situation  that  he  could  not  understand  at 
all,  he  put  aside  for  the  time  his  exasperated  apprehensions 
about  the  next  day's  event,  and  picking  Lydia  up  bodily 
he  carried  her  to  a  couch,  closing  her  lips  with  gentle  hands 
and  soothing  her  with  caresses,  like  a  frightened  child. 


2i 8  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Oh,  you  are  good  to  me ! "  she  murmured  finally,  qui- 
eted. "  I  must  try  not  to  get  so  excited.  But,  Paul  —  I 
can't  tell  you  —  about  —  about  that  letter  —  and  later,  when 
I  saw  Ellen,  it  was  as  though  we  fought  hand  to  hand  for 
Patsy,  though  she  never — " 

"There,  there,  dearest!  Don't  talk  about  it  —  just  rest. 
You've  worked  yourself  into  a  perfect  fever."  If  there  was 
latent  in  the  indulgent  accent  of  this  speech  the  coda,  "  All 
about  nothing,"  it  escaped  Lydia's  ear.  She  only  knew  that 
the  long  nightmare  of  her  lonely,  horrified  day  was  over. 
She  clung  to  her  husband,  and  thanked  heaven  for  his  pure, 
clean  manliness. 

But  in  a  vastly  different  way  the  next  day  was  almost 
as  much  of  a  nightmare.  Lydia's  father  and  mother  were 
temporarily  out  of  town  and  their  at  least  fairly  satisfactory 
cook  was  enjoying  her  vacation  at  an  undiscoverable  address. 
Lydia  was  cut  off  from  asking  her  sister  to  come  to  her 
aid  by  the  fact  that  Paul  had  prevailed  upon  her  to  omit 
Marietta  and  her  husband  from  her  guests.  "  If  you  won't 
give  but  one,  we've  just  got  to  invite  the  important  ones," 
he  had  said.  "  Your  sister  can  take  dinner  with  us  any 
day,  and  you  know  her  husband  isn't  the  most — " 

Lydia  had  picked  up  in  the  school  of  necessity  a  fair 
knowledge  of  cooking,  for  which  she  had  discovered  in  her- 
self quite  a  liking ;  but  she  had  been  too  constantly  in  social 
demand  to  have  the  leisure  for  advancing  far  into  culinary 
lore,  and  she  now  found  herself  dismayed  before  the  elab- 
orate menu  that  Ellen  had  planned,  for  which  the  materials 
were  gathered  together.  She  was  still  shaken  with  the  emo- 
tions of  the  day  before,  and  subject  to  sudden  giddy,  sick 
turns,  which,  although  lasting  but  an  instant,  left  her  enor- 
mously fatigued. 

She  went  furiously  at  the  task  before  her,  beginning  by 
simplifying  the  dinner  as  much  as  she  dared  and  could  with 
the  materials  at  hand,  and  struggling  with  the  dishes  she 
was  obliged  to  retain.  For  years  afterward,  the  sight  of 
chicken  salad  affected  her  to  acute  nausea.  The  inexperi- 
enced and  careless  little  second  girl  lost  her  head  in  the 


An  Evening's  Entertainment  219 

crisis,  and  had  to  be  repeatedly  calmed  and  assured  that  all 
that  would  be  asked  of  her  would  be  to  serve  the  dinner 
to  the  waiters  for  whom  Lydia  had  arranged  hastily  by  tele- 
phone with  Endbury's  leading  caterer.  Ellen  had  planned 
to  serve  the  meal  with  the  help  of  a  waitress  friend  or  two, 
without  other  outside  help;  a  feature  of  the  occasion  that 
had  met  with  Paul's  hearty  approval.  He  told  Lydia  that 
those  palpably  hired- for-the-occasion  nigger  waiters  were 
very  bad  form,  and  belonged  to  a  phase  of  Endbury's  social 
gaucheries  as  outgrown  now  as  charade  parties.  But  now, 
of  course,  nothing  else  was  possible. 

In  the  intervals  of  cooking,  Lydia  left  her  makeshift  help 
in  the  kitchen,  to  see  that  nothing  burned,  and  in  a  frenzy 
of  activity  flew  at  some  of  the  manifold  things  to  be  done 
to  prepare  the  house  for  the  festivity.  She  swept  and  wiped 
up  herself  the  expansive  floors  of  the  two  large  parlors,  set 
the  rooms  in  order,  dusted  the  innumerable  wedding  present 
knickknacks,  cleaned  the  stairs,  wiped  free  from  dust  the 
carved  balustrades,  ordered  the  bedrooms  that  were  to  serve 
as  dressing  rooms  in  the  evening,  answered  the  'phone  a 
thousand  times,  arranged  flowers  in  the  vases,  received  a 
reportorial  call  from  Miss  Burgess,  gave  cut  glass  and  china 
its  final  polish,  laid  out  Paul's  evening  clothes  and  arranged 
her  own  toilet  ready  —  it  was  five  o'clock!  There  were 
innumerable  other  tasks  to  accomplish,  but  she  dared  no 
longer  put  off  setting  the  table. 

It  was  to  be  a  large  dinner  —  large,  that  is,  for  Endbury  — 
of  twenty  covers,  and  Lydia  had  never  prepared  a  table  for 
so  many  guests.  The  number  of  objects  necessary  for  the 
conventional  setting  of  a  dinner  table  appalled  her.  She 
was  so  tired,  and  her  attention  was  so  fixed  on  the  compli- 
cated processes  going  on  uncertainly  in  the  kitchen,  that  her 
brain  reeled  over  the  vast  quantity  of  knives  and  forks  and 
plates  and  glasses  needed  to  convey  food  to  twenty  mouths 
on  a  festal  occasion.  They  persistently  eluded  her  attempts 
to  marshal  them  into  order.  She  discovered  that  she  had 
put  forks  for  the  soup  —  that  in  some  inexplicable  way  at 
the  plate  destined  for  an  important  guest  there  was  a  large 


22O  The  Squirrel-Cage 

kitchen  spoon  of  iron  —  a  wild  sort  of  whimsical  humor 
rose  in  her  from  the  ferment  of  utter  fatigue  and  anxiety. 
When  Paul  came  in,  looking  very  grave,  she  told  him  with 
a  wavering  laugh,  "  If  I  tried  as  hard  for  ten  minutes  to 
go  to  Heaven  as  I've  tried  all  day  to  have  this  dinner  right, 
I'd  certainly  have  a  front  seat  in  the  angel  choir.  If  any- 
body here  to-night  is  not  satisfied,  it'll  be  because  he's 
harder  to  please  than  St.  Peter  himself." 

"  My  Aunt  Alexandra  will  be  here,"  said  Paul,  the  hu- 
morous side  of  her  speech  escaping  him. 

Lydia  set  down  a  tray  of  glasses,  and  broke  into  open, 
shaking,  hysterical  laughter.  Paul  surveyed  her  grimly. 
Her  excitement  had  flushed  her  cheeks  and  darkened  her 
eyes,  and  her  sudden,  apparently  light-hearted,  mirth  put 
the  finishing  touch  to  a  picture  that  could  seem  to  her  hus- 
band nothing  but  a  care-free,  not  to  say  childish,  attitude 
toward  a  situation  of  grave  concern  to  him  and  his  pros- 
pects and  ambitions  in  the  world.  His  inborn  and  highly 
cultivated  regard  for  competence  and  success  in  any  enter- 
prise undertaken,  drowned  out,  as  was  by  no  means  in- 
frequent with  him,  any  judicial  inquiry  into  the  innate 
importance  of  the  enterprise.  He  had  an  instant  of  bitter 
impatience  with  Lydia.  He  felt  that  he  had  a  right  to  hold 
her  to  account  for  the  outcome  of  events.  If  she  were 
well  enough  to  have  rosy  cheeks  and  to  laugh  at  nothing,  she 
was  well  enough  to  have  satisfactory  results  expected  from 
her  efforts. 

"  I  hope  very  much  that  everything  will  go  well,"  he  said 
curtly,  turning  away.  "  Our  first  dinner  party  means  a  good 
deal." 

But  everything  did  not  go  well.  Indeed,  it  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that  nothing  went  well.  From  the  over- 
peppered  soup  (Lydia  had  forgotten  to  caution  her  rattle- 
brained assistant  that  she  had  already  seasoned  the  bouillon) 
to  the  salad  which,  although  excellent,  gave  out  frankly, 
beyond  any  possibility  of  disguise,  while  five  people  were 
still  unserved,  the  meal  was  a  long  procession  of  mishaps. 


An  Evening's  Entertainment  221 

Paul  took  up  sorrily  his  wife's  rather  hysterical  note  of  self- 
mockery,  and  laughed  and  joked  over  the  varied  eccentrici- 
ties of  the  pretentious  menu.  But  there  was  no  laughter 
in  his  heart. 

Never  before,  in  all  his  life,  from  babyhood  up,  had  he 
been  forced  to  know  the  acrid  taste  of  failure,  and  the  dose 
was  not  sweetened  by  his  intense  consciousness  that  he 
was  not  in  any  way  responsible.  No  such  fiasco  had  ever 
resulted  from  anything  he  had  been  responsible  for,  he 
thought  fiercely  to  himself,  leaning  forward  smilingly  to 
talk  to  the  president  of  the  street-railway  company,  who, 
having  nothing  in  the  shape  of  silverware  left  before  his 
place  but  a  knife  and  spoon,  was  eating  his  salad  with  the 
latter  implement.  "  Lydia  has  no  right  to  act  so,"  he 
thought. 

The  hostess  gave  the  effect  of  flushed,  bright-eyed  ani- 
mation usual  with  her  on  exciting  occasions. 

"  Your  wife  is  a  beauty,"  said  the  street-railway  magnate, 
looking  down  the  disorganized  table  toward  her. 

Paul  received  this  assurance  with  the  proper  enthusiastic 
assent,  but  something  else  gleamed  hotly  in  his  face  as  he 
looked  at  her.  "  I  have  some  rights,"  thought  the  young 
husband.  "  Lydia  owes  me  something ! "  He  never  be- 
fore had  been  moved  to  pity  for  himself. 

Lydia  seemed  to  herself  to  be  in  an  endless  bad  dream. 
The  exhausting  efforts  of  the  day  had  reduced  her  to  a  sort 
of  coma  of  fatigue  through  which  she  felt  but  dully  the 
successive  stabs  of  the  ill-served,  unsuccessful  dinner.  At 
times,  the  table,  the  guests,  the  room  itself,  wavered  before 
her,  and  she  clutched  at  her  chair  to  keep  her  balance.  She 
did  not  know  that  she  was  laughing  and  talking  gaily  and 
eating  nothing.  She  was  only  conscious  of  an  intense  long- 
ing for  the  end  of  things,  and  darkness  and  quiet. 

After  the  meal  the  company  moved  into  the  double  par- 
lor. The  plan  had  been  to  serve  coffee  there,  but  as  people 
stood  about  waiting  and  this  did  not  appear,  Paul  drew 
Lydia  to  one  side  to  ask  her  about  it.  She  looked  at  him 


222  The  Squirrel-Cage 

with  bright,  blank  eyes,  and  spoke  in  an  expressionless 
voice :  "  The  grocery  boy  forgot  to  deliver  the  coffee,"  she 
said.  "  There  isn't  any,  I  remember  now." 

He  turned  away  silently,  and  the  later  part  of  the  enter- 
tainment began. 

There  was  to  be  music,  one  of  the  guests  being  Endbury's 
favorite  amateur  soprano,  another  a  pianist  much  thought 
of.  The  singer  took  her  place  by  the  piano,  assuming  care- 
fully the  correct  position.  Lydia  watched  her  balance  on 
the  balls  of  her  feet,  lean  forward  a  little,  throw  up  her 
chest  and  draw  in  her  abdomen.  As  the  preliminary  chords 
of  the  accompaniment  sounded,  she  was  almost  visibly  con- 
centrating her  thoughts  on  the  tension  of  her  vocal  chords, 
on  the  position  of  the  soft  palate  and  the  resonance  of  the 
nasal  cavities.  The  thoughts  of  her  auditors  followed  her 
own.  It  came  to  Lydia  some  time  after  the  performance 
was  over  that  the  words  of  the  song  told  of  love  and  life 
and  tragic  betrayal. 

A  nearby  guest  leaned  to  her  and  said,  during  the  hand- 
clapping  :  "  I  couldn't  make  out  what  it  was  all  about  — 
never  can  understand  a  song  —  but,  say!  can't  she  put  it 
all  over  the  soprano  that  sings  in  the  First  Methodist." 

His  hostess  gave  the  speaker  a  rather  disconcerting  stare, 
hardly  explained,  he  thought,  by  the  enigmatical  statement 
that  came  after  it :  "  Why,  that  is  how  we  are  living,  all 
of  us!" 

The  pianist  was  an  old  German,  considered  eccentric  by 
Endbury.  He  had  a  social  position  on  account  of  his  son, 
a  prosperous  German-American  manufacturer  of  buggies, 
;and  was  invited  because  of  his  readiness  to  play  on  any 
occasion.  The  old  man  looked  about  him  at  the  company 
with  a  fatherly  smile,  and,  sitting  down  to  his  instrument, 
waited  pointedly  until  all  the  cheerful  hum  of  conversation 
had  died  away.  The  room  was  profoundly  silent  as  he 
brought  his  hands  down  on  the  keys  in  a  startling,  thrilling 
chord.  Lydia's  heart  began  to  beat  fast.  She  felt  a  chill 
run  among  the  roots  of  her  hair.  She  was  so  moved  she 
could  have  wept  aloud,  and  yet,  almost  at  once,  as  the  mu- 


An  Evening's  Entertainment  223 

sician  passed  on  to  the  rich  elaboration  of  his  theme,  she 
lost  herself  in  a  groping  bewilderment.  She  had  heard  so 
little  music!  Her  straining  attention  mocked  her  with  its 
futility. 

She  and  Paul  had  been  married  for  eight  months,  but  they 
had  found  no  time  for  the  serious  study  of  music  from 
which  she  had  hoped  so  much.  When  Paul  was  at  home  for 
an  evening  he  was  too  tired  and  worn  for  anything  very 
deep,  he  said,  and  preferred  to  anything  else  the  lighter 
pieces  of  Nevin.  She  now  gave  ear  despairingly  to  the 
mighty  utterance  of  a  master,  catching  only  now  and  then  a 
tantalizing  glimpse  of  what  it  might  mean  to  her.  At  times, 
there  emerged  from  the  glorious  tumult  of  sound  some 
grave,  earnest  chord,  some  quick,  piercing  melody,  some 
exquisite  sudden  cadence,  which  reached  her  heart  intel- 
ligibly ;  but  through  most  of  it  she  felt  herself  to  be  listening 
with  heart-sick  yearning  to  a  lovely  message  in  an  unknown 
tongue.  Her  feeling  of  desolate  exile  from  a  realm  of 
beauty  she  longed  to  enter,  was  intensified,  as  was  natural 
in  so  sensitive  a  nature,  by  the  strange  power  of  music  to 
heighten  in  its  listeners  whatever  is,  for  the  time,  their  pre- 
dominant emotion.  She  felt  like  crying  out,  like  beating 
her  hands  against  the  prison  bars  suddenly  revealed  to  her. 
She  was  almost  intolerably  affected  before  the  end  of  the 
selection. 

"  That's  an  awfully  long  piece  for  anybody  to  learn  by 
heart ! "  commented  her  neighbor  admiringly,  as  the  old 
pianist  finished,  and  stood  up  wiping  his  forehead.  "  Say, 
Mr.  Burkhardt,  what's  the  name  of  that  selection?  "  he  went 
on,  leaning  forward. 

The  old  German  turned  toward  him,  and  answered 
gravely :  "  That  is  the  feerst  mofement  of  Beethoven's 
Opus  Von  Hundred  and  Elefen." 

"  Oh,  it  is,  is  it  ? "  said  Lydia's  guest,  with  a  facetious  in- 
tonation. "All  of  that?" 

After  that  the  soprano  sang  again,  someone  else  sang  a 
humorous  negro  song,  there  was  more  piano  music,  rendered 
by  the  prosperous  son  of  the  old  pianist,  who  played  dash- 


224  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ingly  some  bright  comic-opera  airs.  The  furniture  was 
pushed  back  and  a  few  dancers  whirled  over  the  costly,  hard- 
wood waxed  floors,  which  Lydia  had  cleaned  that  morning. 
She  felt  vaguely  that  everyone  was  being  most  kind  and 
that  her  good-natured  guests  were  trying  to  make  up  for 
the  failure  of  the  dinner  by  unusual  efforts  to  have  the  even- 
ing pass  off  well.  She  was  very  grateful  for  this  humane 
disposition  of  theirs.  It  was  the  bright  spot  of  the  ex- 
perience. 

But  Paul,  who  also  saw  the  kindly  efforts  of  his  guests, 
felt  that  this  was  the  last  intolerable  dagger-thrust.  Their 
amused  compassion  suffocated  him.  He  wanted  people  to 
envy  him,  not  pity  him,  he  thought  in  mortified  chagrin. 

After  an  eternity,  the  hour  of  departure  arrived.  As  the 
door  shut  out  the  last  of  the  smiling,  lying  guests,  the  host 
and  hostess  turned  to  face  each  other. 

Paul  spoke  first,  in  an  even,  restrained  tone :  "  You  would 
better  go  to  bed,  Lydia ;  you  must  be  very  tired." 

With  this,  he  turned  away  to  shut  up  the  house.  He  had 
determined  to  preserve  at  all  costs  the  appearance  of  the 
indulgent,  non-critical,  over-patient  husband  that  he  in- 
tensely felt  himself  to  be.  No  force,  he  thought  grimly, 
shutting  his  jaws  hard,  should  drag  from  him  a  word  of  his 
real  sentiments.  Fanned  by  the  wind  of  this  virtuous  reso- 
lution, his  sentiments  grew  hotter  and  hotter  as  he  walked 
about,  locking  doors  and  windows,  and  reviewing  bitterly 
the  events  of  the  evening.  If  he  was  to  restrain  himself 
from  saying  anything,  he  would  at  least  allow  himself  the 
privilege  of  feeling  all  that  was  possible  to  a  man  so  deeply 
injured. 

Lydia  sat  quietly  waiting  for  him  to  finish,  her  face  in 
her  hands,  conscious  of  nothing  but  fatigue,  in  her  ears  a 
wild  echo  of  the  inexplicable,  haunting  Beethoven  chords. 

Suddenly  she  started  and  raised  her  head,  her  face  trans- 
figured. Her  eyes  shone,  a  smile  was  on  her  lips  like  that 
of  someone  who  hears  from  afar  the  sound  of  a  beloved 
voice.  She  made  a  gesture  of  yearning  toward  her  hus- 


An  Evening's  Entertainment  225 

band.  "  Oh,  Paul  —  Paul !  "  she  cried  to  him  softly,  in  a 
tremulous  voice  of  wonder. 

He  turned,  the  light  for  the  first  time  on  his  black,  love- 
less face.  "  What  is  it  ?  "  he  enunciated  distinctly,  looking 
at  her  hard. 

Before  his  eyes  Lydia  shrank  back.  She  put  up  her 
hands  instinctively  to  hide  her  face  from  him.  Finally, 
"  Nothing  —  nothing  — "  she  murmured. 

Without  comment,  Paul  went  back  to  his  conscientious 
round  of  the  house. 

Lydia  had  felt  for  the  first  time  the  quickening  to  life  of 
her  child.  And  during  all  that  day,  until  then,  she  had  for- 
gotten that  she  was  to  know  motherhood. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AN  ELEMENT  OF  SOLIDITY 

LYDIA  dated  the  estrangement  from  Marietta,  which  grew 
so  rapidly  during  the  next  year,  from  the  conversation  on 
the  day  after  the  dinner  party.  She  was  cruelly  wounded 
by  her  sister's  attack  on  her,  but  she  could  never  remember 
the  scene  without  one  of  her  involuntary  laughs  so  discon- 
certing to  Paul,  who  only  laughed  when  he  felt  gay,  cer- 
tainly at  nothing  which  affected  him  seriously.  But  Lydia's 
sense  of  humor  was  so  tickled  at  the  grotesque  contrast  be- 
tween Marietta's  injured  conception  of  the  brilliant  social 
event  from  which  she  had  been  excluded  and  the  leaden 
fiasco  which  it  had  really  been,  that  even  at  the  time,  in  the 
midst  of  denying  hotly  her  sister's  charges  of  snobbishness 
and  social  ambition,  she  was  unable  to  keep  back  a  shaky 
laugh  or  two  as  she  cried  out:  "  Oh,  Etta!  If  you  could 
know  how  things  went,  you'd  be  too  thankful  to  have  es- 
caped it.  It  was  awful  beyond  words !  " 

Marietta  answered  her  by  handing  her  with  a  grim  si- 
lence a  copy  of  that  morning's  paper,  open  at  Society  Notes. 
Loyal  Flora  Burgess  had  lavished  on  "  Miss  Lydia's  "  first 
dinner  party  her  entire  vocabulary  of  deferential,  not  to  say 
reverential,  encomiums.  The  "  function  had  inaugurated  a 
new  era  of  cosmopolitan  amplitude  of  social  life  in  End- 
bury,"  was  the  ending  of  the  lengthy  paragraph  that  de- 
scribed the  table  decorations,  the  menu,  the  costume  of  the 
hostess,  the  names  of  the  music-makers  afterward. 

Lydia  burst  into  a  hysterical  laugh.  "  Flora  Burgess  is 
too  killing !  "  she  cried.  "  She  was  here  in  the  afternoon  to 
get  details,  and  I  just  let  her  wander  around  and  see  what 
she  could  make  out.  I  was  too  busy  to  pay  any  attention 

226 


An  Element  of  Solidity  227 

to  her  —  Oh,  Etta!  I  was  dead  and  buried  with  fatigue 
before  the  people  even  began  to  come.  I  can't  even  re- 
member much  about  it  except  that  every  single  thing  was 
wrong.  That  about  '  cosmopolitan  amplitude  — '  Oh,  isn't 
Flora  too  funny!  —  means  having  music  after  dinner,  I 
suppose.  I  don't  know  what  else." 

"Of  course,"  said  Marietta,  rising  to  go,  "  it  doesn't 
make  any  difference  what  it  was  really  like !  Only  the  peo- 
ple that  were  there  know  that.  The  report  in  the  paper  — " 

"  Oh,  Marietta,  what  a  thing  to  say  —  that  it's  all  pretense, 
every  bit  —  and  not  — " 

Marietta  went  on  steadily  and  mordantly :  "  I  don't 
know  how  you  feel  about  it,  but  /  shouldn't  be  very  easy 
in  my  mind  to  have  my  only  sister's  name  not  on  the  list  of 
guests  at  my  most  exclusive  social  function." 

Dr.  Melton,  who  made  Lydia  a  professional  call  that 
morning,  found  her  with  reddened  eyes,  slowly  washing  and 
putting  away  innumerable  dirty  dishes.  She  told  him  that 
the  second  girl,  apparently  overcome  by  the  events  of  the 
day  before,  had  disappeared  during  the  night.  Dr.  Melton 
thrust  out  his  lips  and  said  nothing,  but  he  took  off  his 
coat,  put  on  an  apron,  and,  pushing  his  patient  away  from 
the  dishpan,  attacked  a  huge  pile  of  sticky  plates.  He 
worked  rapidly  and  silently,  with  a  surgeon's  deftness. 
Lydia  sat  quiet  for  some  time,  looking  at  him.  Finally,  "  I 
hadn't  been  crying  because  of  dirty  dishes,"  she  told  him; 
"  I'm  not  such  a  child  as  that  Marietta  has  been  here.  She 
said  some  things  pretty  hard  to  bear  about  her  not  having 
been  invited  to  that  awful  dinner  party.  I  didn't  know 
what  she  was  talking  about  a  good  deal  of  the  time  —  it  was 
all  about  what  a  snob  and  traitor  to  my  family  I  was  growing 
to  be." 

"  You  mustn't  blame  Marietta  too  much,"  said  the  doctor, 
rinsing  and  beginning  to  dry  the  plates  with  what  seemed 
to  Lydia's  fatigued  languor  really  miraculous  speed.  "  It's 
true  that  she  watches  your  social  advance  with  the  calm 
disinterestedness  of  a  cat  watching  somebody  pour  cream 
out  of  a  jug.  She  wants  her  saucerful.  But  look  here. 


228  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Did  I  ever  tell  you  about  the  man  Montaigne  speaks  of 
who  spent  all  his  life  to  acquire  the  skill  necessary  to  throw 
a  grain  of  millet  through  the  eye  of  a  needle?  Well,  that 
man  was  proud  of  it,  but  poor  Marietta's  haunted  by 
doubts  as  to  whether  in  her  case  it's  been  worth  while.  It 
makes  her  naturally  inclined  to  be  snappy." 

He  was  so  used  to  delighting  in  Lydia's  understanding  of 
his  perversely  obscure  figures  of  speech  that  he  turned  about, 
surprised  to  hear  no  appreciative  comment.  She  was  look- 
ing away  with  troubled  eyes. 

"  Paul  will  think  I  ought  not  to  have  let  Marietta  talk 
to  me  like  that  —  that  I  ought  to  have  resented  it.  I  never 
can  remember  to  resent  things." 

The  doctor  began  setting  out  polished  water  glasses  on  a 
tray.  "  It  is  the  glory  of  a  man  to  pass  by  an  offense," 
he  quoted.  "  Ah,  don't  you  suppose  if  we  knew  all  about 
things  we'd  feel  as  relieved  at  not'  having  resented  an 
injury  as  if  we  had  held  our  hands  from  striking  a  blind 
man  who  had  inadvertently  run  against  us  ?  " 

There  was  no  response.  It  was  the  second  time  that 
one  of  his  metaphors,  far-fetched  as  he  loved  them,  but 
usually  intelligible  to  Lydia,  had  missed  fire.  He  turned 
on  her  sharply.  "  What  are  you  thinking  about  ? "  he 
asked. 

She  raised  her  tragic  eyes  to  his.  "  About  the  mashed 
potatoes  last  night  —  they  didn't  have  a  bit  of  salt  in  them 
—  they  were  too  nasty  for  — " 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  It  makes  no  difference  whether  your 
dinner  party  was  a  success  or  not !  You  know  that  as  well 
as  I  do.  A  dinner  party  is  a  relic  of  the  Dark  Ages,  any- 
how —  if  not  of  the  Stone  Age !  As  a  physician,  I  shudder 
to  see  people  sitting  down  to  gorge  themselves  on  the  richest 
possible  food,  all  carefully  rendered  extra  palatable  in 
order  that  they  may  put  upon  their  bodies  the  burden  of 
throwing  off  an  enormous  amount  of  superfluous  food.  A 
hundred  years  from  now  people  will  be  as  ashamed  of  us 
for  our  piggishness  as  we  are  of  our  eighteenth-century 
forbears  for  their  wine-swilling  to  the  detriment  of  their 


An  Element  of  Solidity  229 

descendants.  A  dinner  party  of  to-day  bears  no  more  re- 
lation to  a  rational  gathering  of  rational  people  for  the 
purpose  of  rational  social  intercourse  than  — " 

He  had  run  on  with  his  usual  astonishing  loquacity  with- 
out drawing  breath,  overwhelming  Lydia  with  a  fresh  flood 
of  words  when  she  tried  to  break  in;  but  she  now  sprang 
up  and  motioned  him  peremptorily  to  silence. 

"  Please,  please,  Godfather,  don't !  I  asked  you  not  to 
unsettle  me  —  you're  not  kind  to  do  it !  You're  not  kind ! 
I  must  think  it's  important  and,  and  —  the  necessary  thing 
to  do.  I  must!"  She  put  her  hands  over  her  eyes  as 
she  spoke.  She  was  trying  to  shut  out  a  vision  of  Paul's 
embittered  face  of  wrathful  chagrin.  "  That's  the  trouble 
with  me,"  she  went  on.  "  Something  in  me  makes  it  hard 
for  me  to  think  it  important  enough  to  give  up  everything 
else  for  it  —  and  I  — " 

"  Why  '  must '  you  ? "  asked  the  doctor  bluntly,  crum- 
pling his  damp  dishcloth  into  a  ball. 

Lydia  looked  at  him  and  saw  Paul  so  evidently  that  the 
doctor  saw  with  her.  "  I  must !  I  must ! "  she  only  re- 
peated. 

Dr.  Melton  opened  his  mouth  wide,  closed  it  again  with 
a  snap,  and  threw  the  tightly  wadded  ball  in  his  hand 
passionately  upon  the  floor  with  the  gesture  of  an  angry 
child.  Lydia  was  standing  now,  looking  down  at  the  red- 
faced  little  man  as  he  peered  up  at  her  after  his  silent  out- 
break. His  attitude  of  fury  so  contrasted  with  the  pacific 
white  apron  which  enveloped  him,  that  she  broke  out  into 
a  laugh.  Even  as  she  laughed  and  turned  away  to  answer 
a  knock  at  the  door,  she  was  acutely  thankful  that  it  was 
not  with  Paul  that  she  had  been  set  upon  by  that  swiftly 
mobile  change  of  humor,  that  it  was  not  at  Paul  that  she 
had  launched  that  disrespectful  mirth. 

The  person  who  knocked  proved  to  be  a  very  large, 
rosy-cheeked  female,  who  might  be  a  big,  overgrown 
child  or  a  preposterously  immature  woman  for  all  Lydia, 
looking  at  her  in  perplexity,  could  make  out.  She 
felt  no  thrill  of  premonition  as  this  individual  advanced 


'230  The  Squirrel-Cage 

into  the  kitchen,  a  pair  of  immense  red  hands  folded  before 
her. 

"  I'm  Anastasia  O'Hern,  ma'am,"  she  announced  with 
a  thick  accent  of  County  Clare  and  a  self-confident,  good- 
humored  smile,  "  though  mostly  I'm  called  'Stashie  —  and 
I'm  just  over  from  th'  old  country  to  my  Aunt  Bridgie 
that  washed  for  you  till  the  rheumatism  got  her,  and 
when  she  told  me  about  what  you'd  done  for  her  and 
Patsy  —  how  you'd  sent  off  that  ould  divil  where  she 
couldn't  torment  Patsy  no  more,  and  him  as  glad  of  it 
as  Aunt  Bridgie  herself,  just  like  she  knew  he  would  be,  and 
what  an  awful  time  you  do  be  havin'  with  gurrls,  and  a 
baby  comin',  I  says  to  myself  and  to  Aunt  Bridgie, 
'  There's  the  lady  I'm  goin'  to  worrk  for  if  she'll  lave  me 
do  ut,'  and  Aunt  Bridgie  was  readin'  to  me  in  the  paper 
about  your  gran'  dinner  party  last  night  and  I  says  to  her 
and  to  myself,  *  There'll  be  a  main  lot  of  dishes  to  be 
washed  th'  day  and  I'd  better  step  over  and  begin.' ''' 

She  pulled  off  the  shawl  that  had  covered  her  head  of 
flaming  hair,  and  smiled  broadly  at  her  two  interlocutors, 
who  remained  motionless,  staring  at  her  in  an  ecstasy  of 
astonishment. 

As  she  looked  into  Lydia's  pale  face  and  reddened  eyes, 
the  smile  died  away.  She  clasped  her  big  hands  with  a 
pitying  gesture,  and  cried  out  a  Gaelic  exclamation  of  com- 
passion with  a  much-moved  accent ;  then,  "  It's  time  I  was 
here,"  she  told  herself.  She  wiped  her  eyes,  passed  the 
back  of  her  hand  over  her  nose  with  a  sniff,  picked  up  the 
dishcloth  from  the  floor,  and  advanced  upon  a  pile  of 
dirty  silver.  Her  massive  bulk  shook  the  floor. 

"  I  don't  know  no  more  about  housework  than  Casey's 
pig,"  she  told  them  cheerfully,  "  but  Aunt  Bridgie  says  in 
America  they  don't  none  of  the  gurrls  know  nothing. 
They  just  hold  their  jobs  because  their  ladies  know  they 
couldn't  do  no  better  to  change,  and  maybe  I  can  learn. 
I  want  to  help." 

She  emptied  the  silver  into  the  dishwater  with  a  splash, 
and  set  to  work,  turning  her  broad  face  to  them  to  say 


An  Element  of  Solidity  231 

familiarly  over  her  shoulder  to  Lydia,  "  Now,  just  you 
go  and  lie  down  and  send  the  little  ould  gentleman  about 
his  business.  You  need  to  be  quiet — for  the  sake  of  the 
one  that's  coming;  and  don't  you  forget  I'm  here.  I'm 
—  here!" 

Dr.  Melton  drew  Lydia  away  silently,  and  not  until  they 
had  put  two  rooms  between  them  and  the  kitchen  did  they 
dare  face  each  other.  With  that  first  interchange  of  looks 
came  peals  of  laughter  —  Lydia's  light,  ringing  laughter  — 
to  hear  which  the  doctor  offered  up  heartfelt  thanksgivings. 

"  That  is  your  fate,  Lydia,"  he  said  finally,  wiping  his 
eyes. 

"  Don't  you  just  love  her  ?  "  Lydia  cried.  "  Isn't  she  the 
most  human  thing !  " 

"  Do  you  remember  Maeterlinck's  theory  that  every  soul 
summons  — " 

Lydia  interrupted  to  say  with  a  wry,  humorous  mouth, 
"  You  know  I  don't  know  anything.  Don't  ask  me  if  I 
remember  things." 

"  Well,  Maeterlinck  has  one  of  his  fanciful  theories 
that  everybody  calls  to  him  from  the  unknown  those  ele- 
ments that  he  most  needs,  which  are  most  in  harmony 
with—" 

"  I  caught  a  good  solid  element  that  time,"  cried  Lydia, 
laughing  again. 

"She's  embodied  Loyalty,"  said  the  doctor.  "It 
breathes  from  every  pore." 

"  She's  going  to  smash  my  cut  glass  and  china  some- 
thing awful,"  Lydia  foretold. 

Dr.  Melton  took  his  godchild  by  the  shoulders  and 
shook  her.  "  Now,  Lydia  Emery,  you  listen  to  me !  I 
don't  often  issue  an  absolute  command,  if  I  am  your  phy- 
sician, but  I  do  now.  You  let  her  smash  your  china  and 
cut  glass,  and  all  the  rest  of  your  devastating  trash  she 
can  lay  her  hands  on,  rather  than  lose  her  —  until  after 
September,  anyhow!  It's  a  direct  reward  of  virtue  for 
your  having  shipped  the  '  ould  divil ' !  " 

Lydia's    face   clouded.     "  I'm  afraid   Paul  won't  think 


232  The  Squirrel-Cage 

her  much  of  a  substitute  for  Ellen,"  she  murmured,  "  and 
we'll  have  to  find  a  cook  somehow  even  if  this  one  learns 
enough  to  be  second  girl." 

"  Second  girl !  "  ejaculated  the  doctor.  "  She's  a  human 
being  with  a  capacity  for  loyalty." 

"  She's  evidently  awfully  incompetent  — " 
)  The  doctor  snorted.  "  Competence  —  I  loathe  the  word ! 
It's  used  now  to  cover  all  imaginable  sins,  as  folks  used  to 
excuse  all  manner  of  rascality  in  a  good  swordsman.  We're 
beyond  the  frontier  period  now  when  competence  was  a 
matter  of  life  and  death.  We  ought  to  begin  to  have  some 
glimmering  realization  that  there  are  other — " 

"  Oh,  what  a  hand  for  talk !  "  said  Lydia. 

The  doctor  rejoiced  at  her  laughing  impatience.  He 
thought  to  himself,  as  he  looked  at  her  standing  in  the 
doorway  and  waving  good-by  to  him,  that  she  seemed  a 
very  different  creature  from  the  drooping  and  tearful  —  he 
interrupted  his  chain  of  thought  as  he  boarded  his  car, 
to  exclaim,  "  May  she  live  long,  that  heavy-handed,  vivify* 
ing  Celt!" 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  VOICES  IN  THE  WOOD 

LYDIA  had  not  been  mistaken  in  her  premonition  of 
Paul's  attitude  toward  the  new  maid.  He  found  her  quite 
unendurable,  but  the  direful  stories  told  by  their  Bellevue 
acquaintances  about  the  literal  impossibility  of  keeping 
servants  during  the  hot  season  induced  him  to  postpone  his 
wrath  against  the  awkward,  irreverent,  too  familiar  Irish- 
woman until  after  Lydia  should  feel  more  herself.  Paul's 
wrath  lost  nothing  by  keeping. 

To  Lydia,  on  the  contrary,  Anastasia's  loyalty  and  de- 
votion were  inexpressibly  comforting  during  the  trying 
days  of  that  summer.  Her  servant's  loving  heart  radiated 
warmth  and  cheer  throughout  all  her  life.  One  day,  when 
her  mother  protested  against  'Stashie's  habit  of  familiar  con- 
versation with  the  family  (they  had  all  soon  adopted  the 
Irish  diminutive  of  her  name),  Lydia  said:  "I  can  not  be 
too  thankful  for  'Stashie's  love  and  kindness." 

Mrs.  Emery  was  outraged.  "  Good  gracious,  Lydia ! 
What  things  you  do  say." 

"  Why  not  ?  Because  she  hasn't  been  to  college  ? 
Neither  have  I.  She's  as  well  educated  as  I  am,  and  a 
great  deal  better  woman." 

"  Why,  what  are  you  talking  about  ?     She  can't  read ! " 

"  I  don't,"  said  Lydia.     "  That's  worse." 

Her  mother  turned  the  conversation,  thinking  she  would 
be  glad  when  this  period  of  high-strung  nerves  and  fancies 
should  be  over.  She  told  Dr.  Melton  that  it  seemed  to 
her  that  "  Lydia  took  it  very  hard,"  and  she  supposed  they 
couldn't  expect  her  to  be  herself  until  after  September. 

The  doctor  answered:  "Oh,  there's  a  great  deal  of 

233 


234  The  Squirrel-Cage 

nonsense  about  that  kind  of  talk.  A  normal  woman  — 
and,  thank  Heaven,  Lydia's  that  to  the  last  degree  —  has 
the  whole  universe  back  of  her.  Lydia's  always  balanced 
on  a  hair  trigger,  it's  true,  but  she  is  balanced !  And  now 
all  nature  is  rallying  to  her  like  an  army  with  banners." 

"  Ah,  you  never  went  through  it  yourself ! "  Mrs. 
Emery  retreated  to  the  safe  stronghold  of  matronhood. 
"  You  don't  know !  I  had  strange  fancies,  like  Lydia's. 
Women  always  do." 

Another  one  of  Lydia's  fancies  of  that  summer  drove 
her  to  a  strange  disregard  of  caste  rules.  It  came  through 
a  sudden  impulse  of  compassion  one  hot  midsummer  day 
when  Miss  Burgess  hobbled  up  the  driveway  in  the  hope 
of  gleaning  some  Bellevue  society  notes. 

"  It's  a  terrible  time  of  year,  Miss  Lydia,"  she  said, 
sinking  into  a  chair  with  a  long,  quavering  sigh.  "  One 
drops  from  thirty  and  sometimes  forty  dollars  a  week  to 
twenty  or  less ;  and  it's  so  hard  on  one's  feet,  being  on 
them  in  hot  weather.  I  assure  you  mine  ache  like  the 
toothache.  And  expenses  are  as  high  as  in  winter,  or 
worse,  when  you  have  an  invalid  to  look  out  for.  Out 
here  in  breezy  Bellevue  you've  no  conception  how  hot  it 
is  on  Main  Street.  And  Mother  feels  the  heat !  " 

All  this  she  said,  not  complainingly,  but  in  her  usual 
twittering  manner  of  imparting  information,  as  though  it 
were  an  incident  of  a  five-o'clock  tea,  but  Lydia  felt  a 
pang  of  remorse  for  her  usual  thoughtless  attitude  of 
exasperated  hilarity  over  Miss  Burgess'  peculiarities. 
She  noticed  that  the  kind,  vacuous  face  was  beginning  to 
look  more  than  middle-aged,  and  that  the  scanty  hair  above 
it  was  whitening  rapidly. 

"  Why,  bring  your  mother  out  here  for  the  day,  why  don't 
you,  any  time !  "  she  said  impulsively.  "  I  can't  have  any 
social  engagements,  you  know,  the  way  I  am,  and  Paul's 
away  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  and  'Stashie  and  I  can  get 
you  tea  and  eggs  and  toast,  at  least.  I'd  love  to  have  her. 
Now,  any  morning  that  threatens  heat,  just  you  telephone 
you're  both  coming  to  spend  the  day." 


The  Voices  in  the  Wood  235 

She  felt  quite  strange  at  the  thought  that  she  had  never 
seen  the  mother  of  this  devoted,  unselfish,  affectionate,  life- 
long acquaintance. 

But  Miss  Burgess,  though  moved  almost  to  tears  at 
Lydia's  "  kind  thoughtfulness,"  clung  steadfastly  to  her 
standards.  She  had  always  known  that  she  must  not  pre- 
sume on  her  "  exceptional  opportunities  for  acquaintance 
with  Endbury's  social  leaders,"  she  told  Lydia,  nor  take 
advantage  of  any  inadvertent  kindness  of  theirs.  Her 
mother  would  be  the  first  one  to  blame  her  if  she  did; 
her  mother  knew  the  world  very  well.  She  went  away, 
murmuring  broken  thanks  and  protestations  of  devotion. 

Lydia  looked  after  her,  disappointed.  She  had  been 
quite  stirred  by  the  hope  of  giving  some  pleasure.  There 
was  little  to  break  the  long,  lonely,  monotonous  expectancy 
of  her  life.  And  yet  nothing  surprised  those  who  knew  her 
better  than  her  equable  physical  poise  during  this  time  of 
trial  and  discomfort.  Everyone  had  expected  so  high-strung 
a  creature  to  be  "  half-wild  with  nerves."  But  Lydia, 
although  she  continued  to  say  occasional  disconcerting 
things,  seemed  on  the  whole  to  be  gaining  maturity  and 
firmness  of  purpose.  Paul  was  away  a  great  deal  that 
summer  and  she  had  many  long,  solitary  hours  to  pass 
—  a  singular  contrast  to  the  feverish  hurry  of  the  win- 
ter "  season."  Her  old  habit  of  involuntary  question- 
ing scrutiny  came  back  and  it  is  possible  that  her  motto 
of  "  action  at  all  costs  "  was  passed  under  a  closer  mental 
review  than  during  the  winter;  but  though  she  went  fre- 
quently to  see  her  godfather  and  Mrs.  Sandworth,  she  did 
not  break  her  silence  on  whatever  thoughts  were  occupying 
her  mind,  except  in  one  brief,  questioning  explosion. 
This  was  on  the  occasion  of  her  last  visit  to  Endbury  before 
her  confinement,  a  few  days  after  her  call  from  Flora 
Burgess.  It  had  occurred  to  her  that  they  might  know 
something  about  the  reporter's  family  and  she  stopped  in 
after  her  shopping  to  inquire. 

She  found  her  aunt  and  her  godfather  sitting  in  the 
deeply  shaded,  old  grape  arbor  in  their  back  yard";  Dr. 


236  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Melton  with  a  book,  as  always,  Mrs.  Sandworth  ungirdled 
and  expansive,  tinkling  an  ice-filled  cup  and  crying  out 
upon  the  weather. 

"  Sit  down,  Lydia,  for  mercy's  sake,  and  cool  off.  Yes ; 
we  know  all  about  her;  she's  a  patient  of  Marius'.  Have 
some  lemonade!  Isn't  it  fearful!  And  Marius  keeps 
reading  improving  books !  It  makes  me  so  much  hotter ! 
She's  English,  you  know." 

Dr.  Melton  looked  up  from  his  book  to  remark,  with  his 
usual  judicial  moderation,  "  I  could  strangle  that  old  har- 
ridan with  joy.  She  has  been  one  of  the  most  pernicious 
influences  the  women  of  this  town  have  ever  had." 

"  Flora  Burgess'  mother  ?  Why,  I  never  heard  of  her  in 
the  world  until  the  other  day." 

"  You  can't  smell  sewer  gas,"  said  the  doctor  briefly. 

Mrs.  Sandworth  laughed.  "  Marius  almost  killed  himself 
last  winter  to  pull  her  through  pneumonia.  He  worked  over 
her  night  and  day.  Oh,  Marius  is  a  great  deal  better  than 
he  talks  —  strangle  —  !  " 

"  I'm  a  fool,  if  that's  what  you  mean,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  Flora  Burgess'  mother  ? " 
asked  Lydia. 

"  She's  been  a  plague  spot  in  this  town  for  years  — 
that  lower-middle-class  old  Briton,  with  her  beastly  ideas 
of  caste  —  ever  since  she  began  sending  out  her  daughter 
to  preach  her  damnable  gospel  to  defenseless  Endbury 
homes." 

"Marius  —  my  dear!"  chided  Mrs.  Sandworth  — 
"The  Gospel  —  damnable!  You  forget  yourself!" 

The  doctor  did  not  laugh.  "  They're  the  ones,"  he  went 
on,  "  who  first  started  this  idiotic  idea  of  there  being  a 
social  stigma  attached  to  living  in  any  but  just  such  parts 
of  town." 

"  You  live  in  just  such  a  part  of  town  yourself,"  said 
Lydia. 

"  My  good-for-nothing,  pretentious,  fashionable  patients 
wouldn't  come  to  me  if  I  didn't." 

"  Why  do  you  have  to  have  that  kind  of  patients  ? " 


The  Voices  in  the  Wood  237 

Occasionally,  of  late,  with  her  godfather,  Lydia  had  dis- 
played a  certain  uncompromising  directness,  rather  out  of 
character  with  her  usual  gentleness,  which  the  doctor  found 
very  disconcerting.  He  was  silent  now. 

Mrs.  Sandworth's  greater  simplicity  saw  no  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  an  answer.  "  Because,  Lydia,  he's  one  of 
the  Kentucky  Meltons,  and  because,  as  I  said,  he  talks 
a  great  deal  worse  than  he  is." 

"  Because  I  am  a  fool,"  said  the  doctor  again.  This 
time  he  flushed  as  he  spoke. 

"  He  doesn't  like  things  common  around  him,"  went  on 
Mrs.  Sandworth,  "  any  more  than  any  gentleman  does. 
And  as  for  strangling  old  Mrs.  Burgess,  what  good  would 
that  do?  It  can't  be  she  who's  influencing  Endbury,  be- 
cause all  it's  trying  to  do  is  to  be  just  like  every  other  town 
in  Ohio." 

"  In  the  Union !  "  amended  Dr.  Melton  grimly.  He  sub- 
sided after  this  into  one  of  his  fidgety,  grimacing,  finger- 
nail-gnawing reveries.  He  was  wondering  whether  he 
dared  tell  Lydia  of  a  talk  he  had  had  that  morning  with  her 
father.  After  a  look  at  Lydia's  flushed,  tired  face,  he 
decided  that  he  would  better  not;  but  as  the  two  women 
fell  into  a  discussion  of  the  layette,  the  conversation,  Mr. 
Emery's  nervous  voice,  his  sharp,  impatient  gestures,  came 
back  to  him  vividly.  He  looked  graver  and  graver,  as  he 
did  after  each  visit  to  his  old  friend,  and  after  each  fruit- 
less exhortation  to  "  go  slow  and  rest  more."  Mr.  Emery 
was  in  the  midst  of  a  very  important  trial  and,  as  he  had 
very  reasonably  reminded  his  physician,  this  was  not  a 
good  time  to  relax  his  grasp  on  things.  "  Now  I'm  back 
in  practice,  in  competition  with  younger  men,  I  can't  sag 
back !  It's  absurd  to  ask  it  of  me." 

"  You  were  a  fool  to  go  back  into  practice  at  your  age." 

"  A  fool !     I've  doubled  my  income." 

"Yes;  and  your  arteries  —  look  here,  suppose  you  were 
dead.  The  bar  would  get  along  without  you,  wouldn't  it?  " 

"  But  I'm  not  dead,"  the  other  truthfully  opposed  to  this 
fallacious  supposition,  and  turned  again  to  his  papers. 


238  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  doctor  shut  his  medicine  case  with  a  spiteful  snap. 
"  Don't  fool  yourself  that  it's  devotion  to  the  common  weal 
that  drives  you  ahead!  Don't  make  a  pretty  picture  of 
yourself  as  working  to  the  last  in  heroic  service  of  your 
fellow-man!  You  know,  as  I  know,  that  if  you  dropped 
out  this  minute,  American  jurisprudence  would  continue 
on  its  triumphant,  misguided  way  quite  as  energetically  as 
now." 

Mr.  Emery  looked  up,  dropping  for  once  the  mask  of 
humorous  tolerance  with  which  he  was  accustomed  to  hide 
any  real  preoccupation  of  his  own.  "  Look  here,  Melton, 
I'm  too  nervous  to  stand  much  fooling  these  days.  If  you 
want  to  know  the  reason  why  I'm  going  on,  I'll  tell  you. 
I've  got  to.  I  need  the  money." 

"  Gracious  powers !  Did  you  get  caught  in  that  B.  and 
R.  slump?" 

The  Judge  smiled  a  little  bitterly.  "No;  I  haven't  lost 
any  money  —  for  a  very  good  reason.  I  never  was  ahead 
enough  to  have  any  to  lose.  Haven't  you  any  idea  of 
what  the  cost  of  living  the  way  we  do  — " 

Dr.  Melton  interrupted  him,  wild-eyed :  "  Why,  Nat 
Emery!  You  have  yourself  and  your  wife  to  feed  and 
clothe  and  shelter  —  and  you  tell  me  that  costs  so  much 
that  you  can't  stop  working  when  there's  — " 

"  Oh,  go  away,  Melton ;  you  make  me  tired ! "  The 
Judge  made  a  weary  gesture  of  dismissal.  "  You're  al- 
ways talking  like  a  child,  or  a  preacher,  about  how  things 
wight  be!  You  know  what  an  establishment  like  ours 
costs  to  keep  up,  as  well  as  I  do.  I'm  in  it  —  we've  sort 
of  gradually  got  in  deeper  and  deeper,  the  way  folks  do 
—  and  it  would  take  a  thousand  times  more  out  of  me  to 
break  loose  than  to  go  on.  You're  an  old  fuss,  anyhow. 
I'm  all  right.  Only  for  the  Lord's  sake  leave  me  quiet 
now." 

The  doctor  shivered  and  put  his  hand  over  his  eyes  as 
he  remembered  how,  to  his  physician's  eye,  the  increasing  ill 
health  of  his  old  friend  gleamed  lividly  from  his  white  face. 

Mrs.  Sandworth  brought  him  back  to  the  present  with 


The  Voices  in  the  Wood  239 

an  astonished  "  Good  gracious !  how  anybody  can  even 
pretend  to  shiver  on  a  day  like  this ! "  She  added : 
"  Look  here,  Marius,  are  you  going  to  sit  there  and  moon 
all  the  afternoon?  Here's  Lydia  going  already." 

Seasoned  to  his  eccentricities  as  she  was,  she  was 
startled  by  his  answer.  "  Julia,"  he  said  solemnly,  "  did  you 
ever  ctmsider  how  many  kinds  of  murder  aren't  mentioned 
in  the  statute  books  ? " 

"  Marius !    What  ideas !     Remember  Lydia  1 " 

"  Oh,  I  remember  Lydia !  "  he  said  soberly.  He  went  to 
lay  a  hand  fondly  on  her  shoulder.  "  Are  you  really 
going,  my  dear?  I'll  walk  along  to  the  waiting-room  with 
you." 

"  Don't  talk  her  to  death ! "  cried  Mrs.  Sandworth  after 
them. 

"  I  won't  say  a  word,"  he  answered. 

It  was  a  promise  that  he  almost  literally  kept.  He  was 
in  one  of  the  exaggeratedly  humble  moods  which  alternated 
with  his  florid,  talkative,  cock-sure  periods. 

Lydia,  too,  was  quite  thoughtful  and  subdued.  They 
descended  in  a  complete  silence  the  dusty  street,  blazing 
in  the  late  afternoon  sun,  and  passed  into  the  inferno  of 
a  crowded  city  square  in  midsummer.  As  they  stood 
before  the  waiting-room,  Lydia  asked  suddenly :  "  God- 
father, how  can  we,  any  of  us,  do  any  better?  " 

"  God  knows ! "  he  said,  with  a  gesture  of  impotence, 
and  went  his  way. 

Lydia  entered  the  waiting-room  and  went  to  ask  a  man 
in  uniform  when  the  next  car  left  for  Bellevue. 

"  There's  been  an  accident  in  the  power-house,  lady," 
he  told  her,  "  and  that  line  ain't  runnin'." 

Lydia  gave  an  exclamation  of  dismay.  "  But  I  must 
get  back  to  Bellevue  to-night ! " 

Paul  was  out  of  town,  but  she  knew  the  agonies  of  anx- 
iety 'Stashie  would  suffer  if  she  did  not  appear.  "  Oh, 
but  I  can  telephone,"  she  reminded  herself. 

"  You  kin  get  out  there  if  you  don't  mind  takin'  the  long 
way  around,"  the  man  explained  with  a  friendly  interest 


240  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  If  you  take  the  Garfield  line  and  change  at  Ironton  to 
the  Onteora  branch,  it'll  bring  you  back  on  the  other  side 
of  Bellevue,  and  Bellevue  ain't  so  big  but  what  it  won't 
be  a  very  long  walk  to  where  you  live." 

Lydia  thanked  him,  touched,  as  she  so  often  was,  with 
the  kind  and,  to  her,  welcome  absence  of  impersonality  in 
working  people;  and,  assuring  herself  that  she  had  time 
enough  to  eat  something  before  her  car's  departure,  betook 
herself  to  a  dairy  lunch- room  where  she  ate  a  conscien- 
tiously substantial  supper.  The  heat  of  the  day  had  left 
her  little  appetite ;  but  to  "  take  care  of  herself "  now 
seemed  at  last  one  of  the  worth-while  things  to  do  which 
she  had  always  had  so  eager  a  longing. 

At  seven  o'clock  she  took  the  trolley  pointed  out  to  her 
by  her  friend,  the  starter,  who  noticed  and  remembered  her 
when  she  returned  to  the  waiting-room.  The  evening  rush 
was  over,  and  for  some  time  she  was  the  only  passenger. 
Then  a  very  tired-looking,  middle-aged  man,  an  accountant 
perhaps,  in  a  shabby  alpaca  coat,  boarded  the  car  and  sank 
at  once  into  a  restless  doze,  his  heat-paled  face  nodding 
about  like  a  broken-necked  doll's.  Lydia  herself  felt 
heavy  on  her  the  death-like  fatigue  which  the  last  weeks 
had  brought  to  her,  but  she  was  not  sleepy.  She  looked 
out  intently  at  the  flat,  fertile,  kindly  country,  gradually 
darkening  in  the  summer  twilight.  She  was  very  fond  of 
her  home  landscape.  She  had  not  taken  so  considerable  a 
journey  on  a  trolley  for  a  long  time  —  perhaps  not  since 
the  trip  to  the  Mallory  house-party.  That  was  a  long  time 
ago. 

At  the  edge  of  thick  woods  the  car  came  to  a  sudden 
stop.  The  lights  went  out.  The  conductor  disappeared, 
twitched  at  the  trolley,  and  went  around  for  a  consultation 
with  the  motorman,  who  had  at  once  philosophically  pulled 
off  his  worn  glove  and  sat  down  on  the  step.  "  Power's 
off !  "  he  called  back  casually  into  the  car  to  the  accountant, 
who  had  started  up  wildly,  with  the  idea,  apparently,  that 
he  had  been  carried  past  his  station.  "  We've  got  to  wait 
till  they  turn  her  on  again." 


The  Voices  in  the  Wood  241 

"How  long'llthatbe?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  The  whole  system  is  on  the  bum 
to-day.  Maybe  half  an  hour;  maybe  more.  Better  take 
another  nap." 

The  accountant  looked  around  the  car,  encountered 
Lydia's  eyes,  and  smiled  sheepishly.  After  a  time  of  silent 
waiting,  enlivened  only  by  the  murmur  of  the  conversation 
between  the  motorman  and  the  conductor  outside,  the  gray- 
haired  man  suggested  to  Lydia  that  it  would  be  cooler  out 
under  the  trees,  and  if  she  would  like  to  go  he  would  be 
glad  to  help  her.  When  he  had  her  established  on  a  grassy 
bank  he  forbore  further  talk,  and  sat  so  still  that,  as  the 
quiet  moments  slipped  by,  Lydia  almost  forgot  him. 

It  was  singularly  pleasant  there,  with  the  rustling  black- 
ness of  the  wood  behind  them,  and  before  them  the  sweep 
of  the  open  farming  country,  shimmering  faintly  in  the 
light  of  the  stars  now  beginning  to  show  in  the  great  un- 
broken arch  of  the  heavens. 

Here  the  talk  of  the  two  men  on  the  steps  of  the  car  was 
distinctly  audible,  and  Lydia,  with  much  interest,  pieced 
together  a  character  and  life-history  for  each  out  of  their 
desultory,  friendly  chat;  but  presently  they  too  fell  silent, 
listening  to  the  stir  of  the  night  breezes  in  the  forest. 
Lydia  leaned  her  head  against  a  tree  and  closed  her  eyes. 

She  never  knew  if  it  were  from  a  doze,  or  but  from  a 
reverie  that  she  was  aroused  by  a  sudden  thrilling  sound 
back  of  her  —  the  clear,  deep  voice  of  a  distant  'cello. 
Her  heart  began  to  beat  faster,  as  it  always  did  at  the 
sound  of  music,  and  she  sat  up  amazed,  looking  back  into 
the  intense  blackness  of  the  wood.  And  then,  like  a  wak- 
ing dream,  came  a  flood  of  melody  from  what  seemed  to 
her  an  angel  choir  —  fresh  young  voices,  throbbing  and  pro- 
claiming through  the  summer  night  some  joyous,  ever- 
ascending  message.  Lydia  felt  her  pulses  loud  at  her 
temples.  Almost  a  faintness  of  pleasure  came  over  her. 
There  was  something  ineffably  sweet  about  the  disem- 
bodied voices  sending  their  triumphant  chant  up  to  the 
stars. 


242  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  sound  stopped  as  suddenly  as  it  began.  The  motor- 
man  stirred  and  drew  a  long  breath.  "  They  do  fine,  don't 
they  ? "  he  said.  "  My  oldest  girl's  learning  to  sing  alto 
with  them." 

"  He  ain't  musical  himself,  is  he  ?  "  asked  the  conductor. 

"  No ;  he  ain't.  It's  some  Dutch  friends  that  does  the 
playing.  But  he  got  the  whole  thing  up,  and  runs  the 
children.  It's  a  nawful  good  thing  for  them,  let  me  tell 
you." 

"  What'd  he  do  it  for,  I  wonder,"  queried  the  conductor 
idly. 

"  Aw,  I  don't  know.  He's  kind  o'  funny,  anyhow.  Said 
he  wanted  to  teach  young  folks  how  to  enjoy  'emselves 
without  spending  money.  That  kind  of  talk  hits  their 
•folks  in  the  right  spot,  you  bet.  He  owns  a  slice  of  this 
farm,  you  know,  and  he's  given  some  of  the  younger  kids 
pieces  of  ground  for  gardens,  and  he's  got  up  a  night  class 
in  carpentering  for  young  fellows  that  work  in  town  all 
day.  He's  a  crack-a-jack  of  a  carpenter  himself." 

"  He'll  run  into  the  unions  if  he  don't  look  out," 
prophesied  the  conductor. 

"  I  guess  likely,"  assented  the  motorman.  "  They  got 
after  Dielman  the  other  day,  did  you  hear,  because  he — " 
The  talk  drifted  to  gossip  of  the  world  of  work-people. 

It  stopped  short  as  the  'cello  again  sent  out  its  rich, 
vibrant  introduction  to  the  peal  of  full-throated  joy.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  other  sound  in  all  the  enchanted,  starlit 
world  than  this  fervid  harmony. 

This  time  it  did  not  stop,  but  went  on  and  on,  swelling 
and  dying  away  and  bursting  out  again  into  new  ecstasies. 
In  one  of  the  pauses,  when  nothing  but  the  'cello's  chant 
came  to  her  ears,  Lydia  suddenly  heard  mingling  with  it 
the  sweet,  faint  voice  of  a  little  stream  whispering  vaguely, 
near  her.  It  sounded  almost  like  rain  on  autumn  leaves. 
The  lights  in  the  car  flared  up,  blinding  white,  but  the  two 
men  on  the  step  did  not  stir.  The  conductor  sat  with  his 
arms  folded  on  his  knees,  his  head  on  his  arms.  The 
motorman  leaned  against  the  end  of  the  car.  When  the 


The  Voices  in  the  Wood  243 

music  finally  died,  after  one  long,  ringing,  exultant  shout, 
no  one  moved  for  a  time. 

Then  the  motorman  stood  up,  drawing  on  his  glove. 

"  Quite  a  concert ! "  said  the  conductor,  starting  for  the 
back  platform. 

"They  do  fine!"  repeated  the  motorman. 

The  accountant  came  forward  from  the  shadow  and 
helped  Lydia  up  the  steps.  There  were  traces  of  tears  on 

his  tired  face. 

*******  * 

In  September,  when  her  mother  leaned  over  her  to  say 
in  a  joyful,  trembling  voice,  "  Oh,  Lydia,  it's  a  girl,  a 
darling  little  girl ! "  Lydia  opened  her  white  lips  to  say, 
"  She  is  Ariadne." 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  asked  her  mother. 

"  We  must  see  that  she  has  the  clue,"  said  Lydia  faintly. 

Mrs.  Emery  tiptoed  to  the  doctor.  "  Keep  her  very 
quiet,"  she  whispered ;  "  she  is  a  little  out  of  her  head." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
FOR  ARIADNE'S  SAKE 

LITTLE  Ariadne  was  six  months  old  before  Lydia  could 
begin  to  make  the  slightest  effort  to  resume  the  social 
routine  of  her  life.  This  was  not  at  all  on  account  of  ill 
health,  for  she  had  recovered  her  strength  rapidly  and 
completely,  and,  like  a  good  many  normal  women,  had 
found  maternity  a  solvent  of  various  slight  physical  dis- 
orders of  her  girlhood.  She  felt  now  a  more  assured  phys- 
ical poise  than  ever  before,  and  could  not  attribute  her 
disappearance  from  Endbury  social  life  to  weakness. 
The  fact  was  that  Dr.  Melton  had  upheld  her  in  her  wish 
to  nurse  her  baby  herself,  which  limited  her  to  very  short 
absences  from  the  house  and  to  a  very  quiet  life  within 
doors.  She  also  discovered  that  the  servant  problem  was 
by  no  means  simplified  by  the  new  member  of  the  family. 
"  Girls  "  had  always  been  unwilling  to  come  out  to  Bellevue 
because  of  the  distance  from  their  friends  and  followers, 
and  they  now  put  forth  another  universally  recognized  ob- 
stacle in  the  phrase,  "  I  never  work  out  where  there  is  a 
baby.  They  make  so  much  dirt."  Anastasia  O'Hern  was 
there,  to  be  sure  —  heavy-handed,  warm-hearted  'Stashie, 
who  took  the  new  little  girl  to  her  loyal  spinster  heart  and 
wept  tears  of  joy  over  her  safe  arrival;  but  'Stashie  had 
proved,  as  Paul  predicted  from  the  first  time  he  saw 
her,  incorrigibly  rattle-headed  and  loose-ended.  She  had 
learned  to  prepare  a  number  of  simple,  homely  dishes,  quite 
enough  to  supply  the  actual  needs  of  the  everyday  house- 
hold, and  what  she  cooked  was  unusually  palatable.  She 
had  the  Celtic  feeling  for  savoriness.  She  had  also  man- 
aged, under  Lydia's  zealous  tuition,  to  overcome  the 

244 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  245 

Celtic  tolerance  for  dirt,  and  thanks  to  her  square,  pow- 
erful body,  as  strong  as  a  ditch-digger's,  she  made  light 
work  of  keeping  the  house  in  a  most  gratifying  state  of 
cleanliness. 

But  there  were  gaps  in  her  equipment  that  were  not  to 
be  filled  by  any  amount  of  tuition.  In  the  first  place,  as 
Paul  said  of  her,  she  was  as  much  like  the  traditional  trim 
maid  as  a  hippopotamus  is  like  a  gazelle.  Furthermore, 
as  Dr.  Melton  summed  up  the  matter  in  answer  to  one  of 
Paul's  outbreaks  against  her,  she  was  utterly  incapable  of 
comprehending  that  satisfied  vanity  is  the  vital  element  in 
human  life.  For  anything  that  pertained  to  the  appearance 
of  things,  'Stashie  was  deaf,  dumb  and  blind.  She  would 
as  soon  as  not  put  one  of  her  savory  stews  on  the  table  in 
an  earthen  crock,  and  she  never  could  be  trusted  to  set 
the  table  properly.  There  were  always  some  kitchen 
spoons  among  the  silver,  and  the  dishes  looked,  as  Paul  said, 
"  as  though  she  had  stood  off  and  thrown  them  at  a  bull's- 
eye  in  the  middle  of  the  table."  Moreover,  she  herself 
could  not  emancipate  herself  from  the  ideas  of  toilet 
gleaned  in  the  little  one-room  cabin  in  County  Clare.  She 
was  passionately  devoted  to  Lydia,  and  took  with  the 
humblest  gratitude  any  hints  about  the  care  of  her  person, 
but  it  was  like  trying  to  make  a  color-blind  person  into  a 
painter!  Anastasia  could  only  love  on  her  knees,  and 
serve,  and  sympathize  and  cherish ;  she  could  not  remember 
to  comb  her  hair,  or  to  put  on  a  clean  apron  when  she 
opened  the  door,  even  if  it  were  Madame  Hollister  herself 
who  rang.  She  had  once  opened  to  that  important  per- 
sonage attired  in  a  calico  wrapper,  a  sweater,  and  a  pair 
of  rubber  boots,  having  just  come  in  from  emptying  the 
ashes  —  one  of  the  heavy  tasks,  outside  her  regular  work, 
which  she  took  upon  her  strong,  willing  self.  "  But  I  was 
clane,  and  I  got  her  into  the  house  in  two  minutes  from 
the  time  she  rang,  the  poor  old  soul ! "  she  protested  to 
Lydia,  who,  at  Paul's  instance,  had  taken  her  to  task. 

Lydia  explained,  "  But  Mr.  Hollister's  aunt  is  a  person 


246  The  Squirrel-Cage 

who  would  rather  wait  half  an  hour  in  the  cold  than  see 
you  without  an  apron." 

To  which  'Stashie  exclaimed,  in  awestruck  wonder  before 
the  mysteries  of  creation,  "  Folks  do  be  the  beatin'est,  don't 
they  now,  Mis'  Hollister !  " 

"  And  you  must  not  speak  of  Mr.  Hollister's  aunt  as  a 
'  poor  old  soul/  "  explained  Lydia,  apprehensive  of  Paul's 
wrath  if  he  ever  chanced  to  hear  such  a  characterization. 

"  But  she  is  that,"  protested  'Stashie.  "  Anybody  that's 
her  age  and  hobbles  around  so  crippled  up  with  the  rheu- 
matism—  my  heart  bleeds  for  'em." 

"  She  is  very  rich  — "  began  Lydia,  but  after  a  moment's 
hesitation  she  had  not  continued  her  lesson  in  social  value. 
She  often  found  that  'Stashie's  questions  brought  her  to  a 
standstill. 

There  was  something  lacking  in  the  Irishwoman's  mental 
outfit,  namely,  the  capacity  even  to  conceive  that  ideal  of 
impersonal  self-effacement,  which,  as  Paul  said  truthfully, 
is  the  everywhere  accepted  standard  for  servants.  Her 
loquacity  was  a  never-ending  joke  to  Madeleine  Lowder 
and  her  husband,  who  were  exulting  in  a  couple  of  deft, 
silent,  expensive  Japanese  "  boys  "  and  who,  since  Made- 
leine frankly  expressed  her  horror  at  the  bother  of  having 
children,  seemed  likely  to  continue  ignorant,  except  at 
comfortable  second-hand,  of  harassing  domestic  difficulties. 

If  Lydia  had  not  been  in  such  dire  need  of  another  pair 
of  hands  than  her  own  slender  ones,  or  if  the  supply  from 
Endbury  intelligence  offices  had  been  a  whit  less  unreliable 
and  uncertain,  she  would  not  have  felt  justified  in  retain- 
ing the  burly,  uncouth  Celt,  in  spite  of  her  own  affection, 
so  intensely  did  Paul  dislike  her.  As  it  was,  she  felt 
guilty  for  her  presence  and  miserably  responsible  for  her 
homeliness  of  conduct.  'Stashie  was  a  constant  point  of 
friction  between  husband  and  wife,  and  Lydia  was  trying 
with  desperate  ingenuity  to  avoid  points  of  friction  by 
some  other  method  than  the  usual  Endbury  one  of  divided 
interests.  Many  times  she  lay  awake  at  night,  con- 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  247 

vinced  that  her  duty  was  to  dismiss  Anastasia ;  only  to  rise 
in  the  morning  equally  convinced  that  things  without  her 
would  be  in  the  long  run  even  harder  and  more  disagree- 
able for  Paul  than  they  were  now.  The  upshot  of  the 
matter  was  that  she  herself  was  a  very  incompetent  person, 
she  was  remorsefully  sure  of  that;  although  her  mother 
and  Marietta  and  Paul's  aunt  all  told  her  that  she  need 
expect  nothing  during  the  first  year  of  a  baby's  life  but 
one  wretched  round  of  domestic  confusion. 

Lydia  did  not  find  it  so.  She  was  immensely  occupied, 
it  is  true,  for  though  Ariadne  was  a  strong,  healthy  child, 
who  spent  most  of  her  time,  her  grandmother  complained, 
in  sleeping,  to  Lydia's  more  intimate  contact  with  the  situ- 
ation there  seemed  to  be  more  things  to  be  done  for  the 
baby,  in  addition  to  the  usual  cares  of  housekeeping,  than 
could  possibly  be  crowded  into  twenty-four  hours.  And 
yet  she  was  happier  during  those  six  months  than  ever 
before  in  her  life ;  happier  than  she  had  ever  dreamed  any- 
one could  be.  She  stepped  about  incessantly  from  one  task 
to  another  and  was  very  tired  at  night,  but  there  was  no 
nervous  strain  on  her,  and  she  had  no  moments  of  blast- 
ing skepticism  as  to  the  value  of  her  labors. 

Everything  she  did,  even  the  most  menial  tasks  con- 
nected with  the  baby,  was  dignified,  to  her  mind,  by  its 
usefulness;  and  she  so  systematized  and  organized  her 
busy  days  that  she  was  always  ahead  of  her  work.  Paul 
was  obliged  to  alter  his  judgment  of  her  as  impractical 
and  incapable —  although  of  course  the  dearest  and  sweet- 
est of  little  wives  —  for  nothing  could  have  been  more  com- 
petent than  the  way  she  managed  her  baby  and  her  simple 
housekeeping.  Indeed,  there  came  to  the  young  husband's 
mind  not  infrequently,  and  always  with  a  slight  aroma  of 
bitterness,  the  conviction  that  Lydia  was  perfectly  able  to 
do  whatever  she  really  wished  to  do  and  considered  im- 
portant; and  that  previous  conditions  must  have  been  due 
to  her  unwillingness  to  set  herself  seriously  at  the  problems 
before  her.  It  was  a  new  theory  abotft  his  wife's  charac- 


248  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ter,  which  the  intelligent  young  man  laid  by  on  a  mental 
shelf  for  future  use  after  this  period  of  intense  domesticity 
should  be  past. 

At  present,  he  accepted  thankfully  his  clean  house  and 
his  savory  food,  was  not  too  much  put  out  by  'Stashie's 
eccentricities,  since  there  was  no  one  but  the  immediate 
families  to  see  them,  and  rejoiced  with  a  whimsical  tender- 
ness in  Lydia's  passion  of  satisfaction  with  her  baby.  He 
saw  so  little  of  the  droll,  sleeping,  eating  little  mite  that 
he  could  not  as  yet  take  it  very  seriously  as  his  baby. 
But  it  was,  on  the  whole,  a  happy  half-year  for  him  too. 
He  was  much  moved  and  pleased  by  Lydia's  joy.  He  had 
meant  to  make  his  wife  happy. 

Lydia  herself  was  transported  by  the  mere  physical  in- 
toxication of  new  motherhood,  a  potion  more  exciting,  so 
her  much  experienced  physician  said,  than  any  wine  ever 
fermented.  She  hung  over  her  sleeping  baby,  poring  upon 
the  exquisite  fineness  of  the  skin,  upon  the  rosy  little  mouth, 
still  sucking  comically  at  an  imaginary  meal,  upon  the 
dimpled,  fragile  hands,  upon  the  peaceful  relaxation  of  the 
body,  till  the  very  trusting,  appealing  essence  of  babyhood 
flooded  her  senses  like  a  strong  drug;  and  when  the  child 
was  awake,  and  she  could  bathe  the  much  creased  little 
body,  and  handle  the  soft  arms,  and  drop  passionate  kisses 
on  the  satin-smooth  skin,  and  rub  her  cheek  on  the  downy 
head,  she  found  herself  sometimes  trembling  and  dizzy 
with  emotion.  She  felt  constantly  buoyed  up  by  a  deep 
trust  and  belief  in  life  which  she  had  not  known  before. 
The  huge  and  steadying  continuity  of  existence  was  re- 
vealed to  her  in  those  days.  It  was  a  revelation  that  was 
never  to  leave  her.  She  outgrew  definitely  the  sense  of 
the  fragmentary  futility  of  living  which  had  always  been, 
inarticulate,  unvoiced,  but  intensely  felt,  the  torment  01  her 
earlier  life. 

It  grieved  her  generous  heart  and  her  aspiration  to  share 
all  with  her  husband  that  the  exigences  of  his  busy  life 
deprived  him  of  any  knowledge  of  this  newly-opened  well 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  249 

of  sweet  waters,  that  he  had  nothing  from  his  parenthood 
but  an  amused,  half  shame-faced  pride  in  points  about  the 
baby  which,  he  was  informed,  were  creditable. 

At  a  faint  hint  of  this  feeling  on  Lydia's  part,  her 
sister-in-law  broke  into  her  good-natured  laughter  at 
Lydia's  notions.  "  What  can  a  man  know  about  a  baby  ?  " 
she  cried  conclusively. 

"  Why,  I  didn't  know  about  one  till  Ariadne  came.  I 
learned  on  her.  What's  to  hinder  a  man's  doing  the  same 
thing?" 

Madeleine  was  so  much  amused  by  this  fantastic  idea 
that  she  repeated  it  to  Dr.  Melton,  who  came  in  just  then. 

"  Don't  it  take  Lydia!"  she  appealed  to  him. 

The  doctor  considered  the  lovely,  fair-haired  creature 
in  silence  for  a  moment  before  answering.  Then,  "  Yes ; 
of  course  you're  right,"  he  assented.  "  It's  a  strictly  femi- 
nine monopoly.  It's  as  true  that  all  men  are  incapable  of 
understanding  the  significance  of  a  baby  in  the  universe 
and  in  their  own  lives,  as  it  is  true  that  all  women  love 
babies  and  desire  them."  His  tone  was  full  of  a  heavy  signifi- 
cance. He  could  never  keep  his  temper  with  Paul's  sister. 

Madeleine  received  this  without  a  quiver.  She  neither 
blushed  nor  looked  in  the  least  abashed,  but  there  was  an 
unnecessary  firmness  in  her  voice  as  she  answered,  look- 
ing him  steadily  in  the  eye :  "  Exactly !  That's  just  what 
I've  been  telling  Lydia."  She  often  said  that  she  was  the 
only  woman  in  Endbury  who  wasn't  afraid  of  that  imperti- 
nent little  doctor. 

After  Madeleine  had  gone  away,  Lydia  looked  at  her 
godfather  with  shining  eyes.  "  I  am  living!  I  am  living!  " 
she  told  him,  holding  up  the  baby  to  him  with  a  gesture 
infinitely  significant;  "and  I  like  it  as  well  as  I  thought 
I  should !  " 

"  Most  people  do,"  he  informed  her,  "  when  they  get  a 
peck  at  it.  It  generally  takes  something  cataclysmic,  too, 
to  tear  them  loose  from  their  squirrel-cages  —  like  babies, 
or  getting  converted." 


250  The  Squirrel-Cage 

If  he  thought  that  early  married  life  could  also  be 
classed  among  these  beneficently  uprooting  agencies,  he  kept 
his  thoughts  to  himself.  Lydia's  marriage  had  been  emi- 
nently free  from  disagreeable  shocks  or  surprises,  and  amply 
deserved  to  be  called  successful  in  the  usual  reasonable  and 
moderate  application  of  that  adjective  to  matrimony;  but 
there  had  been  nothing  in  it,  certainly,  to  destroy  even 
temporarily  anyone's  grasp  on  what  are  known  as  the  reali- 
ties of  life. 

The  doctor  considered,  and  added  to  his  last  speech: 
"  Getting  converted  is  surer.  Babies  grow  up !  " 

Lydia  felt  that  her  godfather  was  right,  and  that  babies 
gave  one  only  a  short  respite,  when,  toward  spring,  she 
observed  in  all  the  inhabitants  of  her  world  repeated  signs 
of  uneasy  dissatisfaction  with  her  "  submergence  in 
domesticity,"  as  Mrs.  Emery  put  it  in  a  family  council. 
Her  father  inquired  mildly,  one  day  in  March,  with  the 
touchingly  vague  interest  he  took  in  his  children's  affairs, 
if  it  weren't  about  time  she  returned  a  few  calls  and  ac- 
cepted some  invitations,  and  began  "  to  live  like  folks 
again."  "Ariadne  isn't  the  first  baby  in  the  world,"  he 
concluded. 

"  She's  the  first  one  /  ever  had,"  Lydia  reminded  him, 
with  the  humorous  smile  that  was  so  like  his  own. 

"  Well,  you  mustn't  forget,  as  so  many  young  mothers 
do,  that  you're  a  member  of  society  and  a  wife,  as  well  as  a 
wet-nurse,"  he  said. 

Marietta  had  never  resumed  an  easy  or  genial  intercourse 
with  the  Hollisters  since  the  affair  of  the  dinner  party,  but 
she  came  to  call  at  not  infrequent  intervals,  and  Paul's 
sister  dropped  in  often,  to  "  keep  an  eye  on  Lydia,"  as  she 
told  her  husband.  She  had  an  affection  for  her  sister-in- 
law,  in  spite  of  an  exasperated  amusement  over  her  liability 
to  break  out  with  new  ideas  at  unexpected  moments.  Both 
these  ladies  were  loud  in  their  exhortations  to  Lydia  not  to 
let  maternity  be  in  her  life  the  encumbering,  unbeautifying, 
too  lengthy  episode  it  was  to  women  with  less  force  of  char- 
acter than  their  own.  "  You  do  get  so  out  of  things," 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  251 

Madeleine  told  her  with  her  usual  breathless  italicizing,  "  if 
you  stay  away  too  long.  You  just  never  can  catch  up! 
There's  a  behind-the-timesy  smell  about  your  clothes  — 
honest,  there  is  —  if  you  let  them  go  too  long." 

Marietta  added  her  quota  of  experienced  wisdom  to  the 
discussion.  "  If  you  just  hang  over  a  baby  all  the  time, 
you  get  morbid,  and  queer,  and  different." 

Madeleine  had  laughed,  and  summed  up  the  matter  with 
a  terse,  "  Worse  than  that !  You  get  left !  " 

Lydia's  elder  brother,  George,  the  rich  one,  who  lived  in 
Cleveland  and  manufactured  rakes  and  hoes,  wrote  her 
one  of  his  rare  letters  to  the  same  effect.  Lydia  thought 
it  likely  that  he  had  been  moved  to  this  unusual  show  of 
interest  in  her  affairs  by  proddings  from  her  mother  and 
Marietta.  If  this  surmise  was  correct,  and  if  a  similar  re- 
quest had  been  sent  to  Henry,  the  other  member  of  the 
Emery  family,  the  one  who  had  married  the  grocer's 
daughter,  the  appeal  had  a  strikingly  different  effect.  From 
Oregon  came  an  impetuous,  slangily-worded  exhortation  to 
Lydia  not  to  make  a  fool  of  herself  and  miss  the  best  of 
life  to  live  up  to  the  tommyrot  standard  of  old  dry-as-dust 
Endbury.  The  Emerys  heard  but  seldom  from  this  erring 
son,  and  Lydia,  who  had  been  but  a  child  when  he  left  home, 
had  never  before  received  a  letter  from  him.  He  wrote 
from  a  fruit  farm  in  Oregon,  the  description  of  which,  on 
the  grandiloquent  letter-head,  gave  an  impression  of  ample- 
ness  and  prosperity  which  was  not  contradicted  by  the  full- 
blooded  satisfaction  in  life  which  breathed  from  every  line 
of  the  breezy,  good-natured  letter. 

The  incident  stirred  Lydia's  imagination.  It  spoke  of  a 
wider  horizon  —  of  a  fresher  air  than  that  about  her.  She 
tried  to  remember  the  loud-talking,  much-laughing,  easy- 
going young  man  as  she  had  seen  him  last.  They  were  too 
far  apart  in  years  to  have  had  much  companionship,  but 
there  had  been  between  them  an  unspoken  affection  which 
had  never  died.  People  always  said  that  George  and 
Marietta  were  alike  and  Lydia  and  Harry.  To  this  Mrs. 
Emery  always  protested  that  Lydia  wasn't  in  the  least  like 


252  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Henry,  and  she  didn't  know  what  people  were  talking  about ; 
but  the  remark  gave  a  secret  pleasure  to  Lydia.  She,  too, 
was  very  fond  of  laughing,  and  her  brother's  vein  of  light- 
hearted  nonsense  had  been  a  great  delight  to  her.  It  was 
not  present  in  any  of  the  rest  of  the  family,  and  certainly 
did  not  show  itself  in  her  at  this  period  of  her  life. 

During  this  time  Paul's  attention  was  concentrated  on 
bringing  about  a  reallotment  of  American  Electric  territory 
in  the  Middle  West,  an  arrangement  that  would  add  several 
busy  cities  to  his  district  and  make  a  decided  difference  in 
his  salary  and  commissions.  He  worked  early  and  late  in 
the  Endbury  office,  and  made  many  trips  into  all  parts  of 
the  field,  to  gather  data  conclusive  of  the  value  of  his 
scheme.  Lydia  had  tried  hard  to  get  from  him  information 
enough  to  understand  what  it  was  all  about,  but  he  put  her 
off  with  vague,  fatigued  assurances  that  it  was  too  compli- 
cated for  her  to  grasp,  or  for  him  to  go  over  without  his 
papers ;  that  it  would  take  him  too  long  to  explain,  and  that, 
anyhow,  she  could  be  sure  of  one  thing  —  it  was  all  straight, 
clean  business,  designed  entirely  to  give  the  public  better 
service  and  more  work  from  everybody  all  'round.  Lydia 
did  not  doubt  this.  It  was  always  a  great  source  of  satis- 
faction to  her  to  feel  secure  and  unshaken  trust  in  her 
father's  and  her  husband's  business  integrity,  and  she  was 
sorry  for  Marietta,  who  could  not,  she  feared,  count  among 
her  spiritual  possessions  any  such  faith  in  Ralph.  It  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  one  of  her  most  unresigned  regrets,  that 
she  was  not  allowed  to  share  in  these  ideals  for  public  serv- 
ice of  her  husband  and  father  —  these  ideals  so  distantly 
glimpsed  by  her,  and  perhaps  not  very  consciously  felt  by 
them.  It  was  not  that  they  refused  to  answer  any  one 
of  her  questions,  but  they  were  so  little  in  the  habit  of  ar- 
ticulating this  phase  of  their  activities  that  their  tongues 
balked  stubbornly  before  her  ignorant  and  fumbling  attempts 
to  enter  this  inner  chamber. 

"  Oh,  it's  all  right,  Lydia !  Just  you  trust  me ! "  Paul 
would  cry,  with  a  hint  of  vexation  in  his  voice,  as  if  he 
felt  that  questions  could  mean  only  suspicion. 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  253 

Lydia's  tentative  efforts  to  construct  a  bridge  between 
her  world  and  his  met  constantly  with  this  ill  success.  She 
had  had  so  little  training  in  bridge-building,  she  thought 
sadly. 

One  evening  that  spring,  such  a  futile  attempt  of  hers  was 
interrupted  by  the  son  of  one  of  their  neighbors,  a  lad  of 
eighteen,  who  had  just  been  given  a  subordinate  position  in 
his  father's  business.  As  he  strolled  up  to  their  veranda 
steps,  Lydia  looked  up  from  the  dress  she  was  enlarging  for 
the  rapidly  growing  baby  and  reflected  that  astonishingly 
rapid  growth  is  the  law  of  all  healthy  youth.  The  tall  boy 
looked  almost  ludicrous  to  her  in  his  ultra-correct  man's, 
outfit,  so  vividly  did  she  recall  him,  three  or  four  years  be- 
fore, in  short  trousers  and  round-collared  shirt-waist.  His 
smooth,  rosy  face  had  still  the  downy  bloom  of  adolescence. 

"  Howd'  do,  Walter !  "  said  Paul,  glancing  up  from  a  pile 
of  blue-prints  over  which  he  had  been  straining  his  eyes  in 
the  fading  evening  light. 

"  Evening,"  answered  the  boy,  nodding  and  sitting  down 
on  the  top  step  with  one  knee  up.  "  D'you  mind  if  I  smoke, 
Mrs.  Hollister?" 

"  Not  at  all,"  she  answered  gravely,  tickled  by  the  elab- 
orate carelessness  with  which  he  handled  his  new  pipe. 

"  What  you  working  on,  Hollister  ?  "  he  went  on  with  the 
manner  of  one  old  business  man  to  another. 

Lydia  hid  a  smile.  She  found  him  delicious.  She  began 
to  think  how  she  could  make  Dr.  Melton  laugh  with  her 
account  of  Walter  the  Man. 

"  The  lay-out  of  the  new  power-house  —  Elliott-Gridley 
works  in  Urbana,"  answered  Paul,  in  a  straightforward, 
reasonable  tone,  a  little  absent. 

Lydia  stopped  smiling.  It  was  a  tone  he  had  never  used 
to  answer  any  business  question  she  had  ever  put  to  him. 
"  I'm  figuring  on  their  generators,"  he  went  on  in  expla- 
nation. 

"Big  contract?"  asked  Walter. 

"  Two  thousand  kilowatt  turbo  generator,"  answered 
Paul. 


254  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  other  whistled.  "  Whew !  I  didn't  know  they  had 
the  cash !  " 

"  They  haven't,"  said  Paul  briefly. 

"  Oh,  chattel-mortgage  ?  "  surmised  the  other. 

"  Lease-contract,"  Paul  corrected.  "  That  doesn't  have  to 
be  recorded." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  recording  it  ?  " 

"  Afraid  of  their  credit.  They  don't  want  Dunn's  send- 
ing all  over  creation  that  they've  put  chattel-mortgages  on 
their  equipment,  do  they  ?  " 

"  No ;  sure !  I  see."  The  boy  grasped  instantly,  with  a 
quick  nod,  the  other's  meaning.  "  Well,  that's  one  way  of 
gettin'  'round  it ! "  he  added  admiringly  after  an  instant's 
pause. 

Lydia  had  laid  down  her  work  and  was  looking  intently 
at  her  two  companions.  At  this  she  gave  a  stifled  exclama- 
tion which  made  the  boy  turn  his  head.  "  Say,  Mrs.  Hollis- 
ter,  aren't  you  looking  kind  of  pale  this  evening?  "  he  asked. 
"  These  first  hot  nights  do  take  it  out  of  a  person,  don't 
they?  Mr.  Hollister  ought  to  take  you  to  Put-in-Bay  for 
a  holiday.  Momma'd  take  care  of  the  baby  for  you  and 
welcome.  She's  crazy  about  babies."  He  was  again  the 
overgrown  school-boy  that  Lydia  knew.  The  conversation 
drifted  to  indifferent  topics.  Lydia  did  not  take  her  usual 
share  in  it,  and  when  their  caller  had  gone  Paul  inquired 
if  she  really  were  exhausted  by  the  heat. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  said ;  "  you  know  I  don't  mind  the  heat." 

"  You  didn't  say  much  when  Walter  was  here,  and 
I—" 

"  I  was  thinking,"  Lydia  broke  in.  "  I  was  thinking  that 
I  couldn't  understand  a  word  you  and  Walter  were  saying 
any  more  than  if  you  were  talking  Hebrew.  I  was  think- 
ing that  that  little  boy  knows  more  about  your  business 
than  I  do." 

Paul  did  not  attempt  to  deny  this,  but  he  laughed  at  her 
dramatic  accent.  "  Sure,  he  does !  And  about  how  to  tie 
a  four-in-hand,  and  what's  the  best  stud  to  wear  at  the  back 
of  a  collar,  and  where  to  buy  socks.  What's  that  to  you  ?  " 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  255 

Lydia  looked  at  him  with  quivering,  silent  lips. 

He  answered,  with  a  little  heat :  "  Why,  look-y  here, 
Lydia,  suppose  I  were  a  doctor.  You  wouldn't  expect  to 
know  how  many  grains  of  morphine  or  what  d'you  call  'em 
I  was  going  to  use  in  — " 

"  But  Dr.  Melton  is  a  doctor,  and  I  know  lots  about  what 
he  thinks  of  as  he  lives  day  after  day  —  there  are  other 
things  besides  technical  details  and  grains  of  morphine  — 
other  problems  —  human  things —  Why,  for  instance, 
there's  one  question  that  torments  him  all  the  time  —  how 
much  it's  right  to  humor  people  who  aren't  sick  but  think 
they  are.  He  talks  to  me  a  great  deal  about  such  — " 

Paul  laughed,  rising  and  gathering  up  his  blue-prints. 
"  Well,  I  can't  think  of  any  problem  that  torments  me  but 
the  everlasting  one  of  how  to  sell  more  generators  and 
motors  than  my  competitors.  Come  on  indoors,  Honey; 
I've  got  to  have  some  light  if  I  finish  going  over  these 
to-night." 

His  accent  was  evidently  intended  to  end  the  discussion, 
and  Lydia  allowed  it  to  do  so,  although  the  incident  was  one 
she  could  not  put  out  of  her  mind.  She  watched  Walter 
going  back  and  forth  to  Endbury  with  a  jealousy  the  ab- 
surdity of  which  she  herself  realized,  and  she  listened  with 
a  painful  intentness  to  the  boy's  talk  during  his  occasional 
idle  sojourns  on  their  veranda  steps.  Yet  she  had  been  used 
to  hearing  Paul  talk  unintelligibly  to  the  business  asso- 
ciates whom,  from  time  to  time,  he  brought  out  to  the  house 
to  dine  and  to  talk  business  afterward.  Somehow,  she 
said  to  herself,  it's  being  just  Walter  seemed  to  bring  it 
home  to  her.  To  have  that  boy  —  and  yet  she  liked  him, 
too,  she  thought.  She  looked  sometimes  into  his  fresh, 
innocently  keen  face  with  a  yearning  apprehension.  Paul 
was  amused  at  his  precocious  airs,  and  yet  was  not  without 
respect  for  his  rapidly  developing  business  capacity.  He 
said  once,  "  Walter's  a  real  nice  boy.  I  shouldn't  mind  hav- 
ing a  son  like  that  myself !  " 

The  remark  startled  Lydia.  If  she  were  to  have  a  son 
he  zvould  be  like  that,  she  realized.  And  he  would  grow  up 


256  The  Squirrel-Cage 

and  marry  some  —  she  sprang  up  and  caught  Ariadne  to 
her  in  a  sudden  fierce  embrace. 

"  You'll  break  your  back  lifting  that  heavy  baby  'round 
so,"  Paul  remonstrated  with  justice. 

For  all  her  aversion  to  the  set  forms  of  "  society "  as 
understood  by  Endbury,  Lydia  was  fond  of  having  people 
about  her,  "  to  try  to  get  really  acquainted  with  them  "  she 
said,  and  during  that  summer  the  Hollister  veranda  in  the 
evening  became  a  rendezvous  for  their  Bellevue  neighbors. 
Paul  rather  deplored  the  time  wasted  in  this  unprofitable 
variety  of  informal  social  life  which,  in  his  phrase,  "  counted 
for  nothing  "  but  he  was  always  glad  to  see  Walter.  "  At 
the  rate  he's  going  and  the  way  he's  taking  hold,  he'll  be  a 
valuable  business  friend  in  a  few  years,"  he  said  prophet- 
ically to  Lydia,  and  he  assumed  more  and  more  the  airs  of 
a  comrade  with  the  lad. 

One  evening  when  Walter  came  lounging  over  to  the 
veranda,  Lydia  was  busy  indoors,  but  later  she  stepped  to 
the  door  in  time  to  hear  Paul  say,  laughing :  "  Well,  for 
all  that,  he's  not  so  good  as  Wellman  Phelps'  stenographer." 

"  How  so  ?  "  asked  the  boy,  alert  for  a  pleasantry  from  his 
elder. 

"  Why,  Phelps  carries  this  fellow  'round  with  him  every- 
where he  goes,  has  had  him  for  years,  and  twice  a  week 
all  he  has  to  do  is  to  say:  'Say,  Fred;  write  my  wife, 
will  you?'" 

His  listener  broke  out  into  a  peal  of  boyish  laughter. 
"  Pretty  good !  "  he  applauded  the  joke. 

"  It's  a  fact,"  Paul  went  on.  "  Fred  writes  it  and  signs 
lit  and  sends  it  off,  and  Phelps  never  has  to  trouble  his  head 
about  it." 

Lydia  stepped  back  into  the  darkness  of  the  hall. 

When  she  came  out  later,  a  misty  figure  in  white,  Paul 
rose,  saying,  "  Well,  Walter,  I'll  leave  you  to  Mrs.  Hollister 
now.  I've  got  some  work  to  do  before  I  get  to  bed." 

Lydia  sat  silent,  looking  at  the  boy's  face,  clear  and  un- 
tarnished in  the  moonlight.  He  was  looking  dreamily  away 
at  the  lawn,  dappled  with  the  shadow  of  the  slender  young 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  257 

trees.  They  seemed  creatures  scarcely  more  sylvan  than  he, 
sprawled,  like  a  loitering  faun  with  his  hands  clasped  be- 
hind his  head.  His  mouth  had  the  pure,  full  outlines  of  a 
child's. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about,  Walter  ?  "  Lydia  asked 
him  suddenly. 

He  started,  and  brought  his  limpid  gaze  to  hers.  "  About 
how  to  cross-index  our  follow-up  letter  catalogue  better,", 
he  answered  promptly. 

"  Really  ?  Really  ?  "  She  leaned  toward  him,  urging  him 
to  frankness. 

He  was  surprised  at  her  tone.  "  Why,  sure ! "  he  told 
her.  "  Why  not  ?  What  else  ?  " 

Lydia  said  no  more. 

She  had  never  felt  more  helplessly  her  remoteness  from 
her  husband's  world  than  during  that  spring.  It  was  a 
sentiment  that  Paul,  apparently,  did  not  reciprocate.  In 
spite  of  his  frequent  absences  from  home  and  his  detached 
manner  about  most  domestic  questions,  he  had  as  definite 
ideas  about  his  wife's  resumption  of  her  social  duties  as 
had  everyone  else.  "  It  made  him  uneasy,"  as  he  put  it, 
"  to  be  losing  so  many  points  in  the  game." 

"  Look  here,  my  dear,"  he  said  one  evening  in  spring 
when  the  question  came  up ;  "  summer's  almost  here,  and 
this  winter's  been  as  good  as  dropped  right  out.  Can't  you 
just  pick  up  a  few  threads  and  make  a  beginning?  It'll 
make  it  easier  in  the  fall."  He  added,  uneasily,  "  We 
don't  want  old  Lowder  and  Madeleine  to  get  ahead  of  us 
entirely,  you  know.  You  can  leave  the  kid  with  'Stashie, 
can't  you,  once  in  a  while  ?  She  ought  to  be  able  to  do  that 
much,  I  should  think."  He  spoke  as  though  he  had  assigned 
to  her  the  simplest  possible  of  all  domestic  undertakings. 
As  Lydia  made  no  response,  he  said  finally,  before  attacking 
a  pile  of  papers,  "  If  I'm  going  to  earn  a  lot  more  money, 
what  good'll  it  do  us  if  you  don't  do  your  share  ?  Besides, 
we  owe  it  to  the  kid.  You  want  to  do  your  best  by  your 
little  girl,  don't  you?" 

As  always,  Lydia  responded  with  a  helpless  alacrity  to 


258  The  Squirrel-Cage 

that  appeal.  "  Oh,  yes !  Oh,  yes !  We  must  do  our  best 
for  her."  This  phrase  summed  up  the  religion  she  had  at 
last  found  after  so  much  fervent,  undirected  search.  The 
church,  as  she  knew  it,  was  chiefly  the  social  center  of 
various  fashionable  activities  which  differed  from  ordinary 
fashionable  enterprises  only  in  being  used  to  bring  in  money, 
which  money,  handed  over  to  the  rector,  disappeared  into 
the  maw  of  some  unknown,  voracious,  charitable  institution. 
And  beyond  the  church  there  had  been  no  element  in  the 
life  she  knew,  that  was  not  frankly  materialistic.  But  now, 
as  the  miracle  of  awakening  consciousness  took  place  daily 
in  her  very  sight,  and  as  the  first  dawnings  of  a  personality 
began  to  look  out  of  her  child's  eyes,  all  Lydia's  vague  spir- 
itual cravings,  all  the  groping  tendrils  6f  her  aspirations, 
clung  about  the  conviction  more  and  more  summing  up  her 
inner  life,  that  she  must  do  her  best  for  Ariadne,  must 
make  the  world,  into  which  that  little  new  soul  had  come, 
a  better  place  than  she  herself  had  found  it.  She  felt  as 
naively  and  passionately  that  her  child  must  be  saved  the 
mistakes  that  she  had  made,  as  though  she  were  the  first 
mother  who  ever  sent  up  over  her  baby's  head  that  pitiful, 
universal  prayer. 

The  matter  of  the  social  duty  of  the  young  Hollisters  was 
finally  compromised  by  Lydia's  accepting  a  number  of  in- 
vitations for  the  latter  part  of  the  season,  and  giving  a  series 
of  big  receptions  in  May.  They  were  not  by  a  hair  nor  a 
jot  nor  a  tittle  to  be  distinguished  from  their  predecessors 
of  the  year  before.  As  they  seemed  hardly  adequate,  Lydia 
suggested  half-heartedly  that  they  give  a  dinner  party,  but 
Paul  replied,  "  With  'Stashie  to  pour  soup  down  people's 
backs  and  ask  them  how  their  baby's  whooping  cough  is,  as 
she  passes  the  potatoes  ?  " 

The  hot  weather  came  with  the  rush  that  was  always  so 
unexpected  and  so  invariable,  and  another  season  was  over. 
It  was  a  busy,  silent,  thoughtful  summer  for  Lydia. 
Of  course  (much  to  Lydia's  distress),  Ariadne  had  been 
weaned  when  her  mother  had  been  forced  to  leave  her  to 
"  go  out "  again,  and  this  necessitated  such  anxious  atten- 


For  Ariadne's  Sake  259 

tion  to  her  diet  and  general  regimen  during  the  hot  weather 
that  Lydia  was  very  grateful  to  have  little  to  interfere  with 
her. 

The  General  Office  had  accepted  provisionally  Paul's  re- 
distributing plan,  and  in  his  anxiety  to  prove  its  value  he 
was  away  from  home  more  even  than  usual.  The  heat  was 
terrible,  but  Lydia  and  he  both  knew  no  other  climate,  and 
Lydia  loved  the  summer  as  the  time  of  year  when  the  fierce- 
ness of  Nature  forced  on  all  her  world  a  reluctant  adjourn- 
ment of  their  usual  methods  of  spending  their  lives.  She 
was  absorbed  in  Ariadne,  and  the  slow,  blazing  summer  days 
were  none  too  long  for  her. 

The  child  began  to  develop  an  individuality.  She  was 
a  sensitive,  quickly-responsive  little  thing;  exactly,  so  Mrs. 
Emery  said,  like  Lydia  at  her  age,  except  that  she  seemed 
to  have  none  of  Lydia's  native  mirth,  but,  rather,  a  little 
pensive  air  that  made  her  singularly  appealing  to  all  who 
saw  her,  and  that  pierced  her  mother's  heart  with  an  anguish 
of  protecting  love. 

Lydia  said  to  her  godfather  one  day,  suddenly,  "  I  wonder 
if  people  can  be  taught  how  to  fight?  " 

He  had  one  of  his  flashes  of  intuition.  "  The  baby,  you 
mean?" 

Lydia  evaded  the  directness  of  this.  "  Oh,  in  general, 
aren't  folks  better  off  if  they  like  to  fight  for  themselves? 
Don't  they  have  to  ?  " 

He  considered  the  question  in  one  of  his  frowning  si- 
lences, so  long  that  Lydia  started  when  he  spoke  again. 
"  They  don't  need  to  fight  with  claws  for  their  food,  as 
they  used  to  do.  Things  are  arranged  now  so  that  the  phys- 
ically strong,  who  like  such  a  life,  are  the  ones  who  choose 
it.  They  get  food  for  the  others.  Why  shouldn't  the 
morally  strong  fight  for  the  weaker  ones  and  make  it  pos- 
sible for  everyone  to  have  a  chance  at  developing  the  best 
of  himself  without  having  to  battle  with  others  to  do  it?  " 

"  That's  pretty  vague,"  said  Lydia. 

"Why,  look  here,"  said  the  doctor.  "You  don't  plow 
the  field  to  plant  the  wheat  that  makes  your  bread.  That's 


260  The  Squirrel-Cage 

done  by  a  man  of  a  coarser  physical  fiber  than  yours,  who 
is  strengthened  by  the  effort,  and  not  exhausted  as  you 
would  be.  Why  shouldn't  the  world  be  so  organized  that 
somebody  of  coarser  moral  texture  than  yours  should  do 
battle  with  the  forces  of  materialism  and  tragic  triviality 
that—" 

"But  Ariadne's  growing  up!  She  will  need  all  that  so 
soon  —  and  the  world  won't  be  organized  then,  you  know 
it  won't  —  and  she's  no  fighter  by  instinct,  any  more  than  — " 
She  was  silent.  The  doctor  filled  in  her  incomplete  sen- 
tence mentally,  and  found  no  answer  to  make. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


ONE  hot  day  in  August,  Ariadne  slept  later  than  usual 
and  when  she  woke  was  quite  unlike  her  usual  romping, 
active  self.  Her  round  face  was  deeply  flushed,  and  she 
lay  listlessly  in  her  little  bed,  repulsing  with  a  feeble  fret- 
fulness  every  attempt  to  give  her  food.  Lydia's  heart 
swelled  so  that  she  was  choked  with  its  palpitations.  Paul 
was  out  of  town.  She  was  alone  in  the  house  except  for 
her  servant.  To  that  ignorant  warm  heart  she  turned 
with  an  inexpressible  thankfulness.  "  Oh,  'Stashie !  'Sta- 
shie ! "  she  called  in  a  voice  that  brought  the  other  clatter- 
ing breathlessly  up  the  stairs.  "  The  baby !  Look  at  the 
baby !  And  she  won't  touch  her  bottle." 

The  tragic  change  in  the  Irishwoman's  face  as  she  looked 
at  their  darling,  their  anguished  community  of  feeling  — 
there  was  instantly  a  bond  for  the  two  women  which  won- 
derfully ignored  all  the  dividing  differences  between  them. 
Lydia  felt  herself — ?as  she  rarely  did  —  not  alone.  It 
brought  a  wild  comfort  into  her  tumult.  "  'Stashie,  you 
don't  —  you  don't  think  she's  —  sick?"  She  brought  the 
word  out  with  horrified  difficulty. 

'Stashie  was  running  down  the  back  stairs.  "  I'm 
'phonin'  to  th'  little  ould  doctor,"  she  called  over  her 
shoulder. 

Lydia  ran  to  catch  up  Ariadne.  The  child  turned  from 
her  mother  with  a  moan  and  closed  her  eyes  heavily.  A 
moment  later,  to  Lydia's  terror,  she  had  sunk  into  a  stupor. 

The  doctor  found  mistress  and  maid  hanging  over  the 
baby's  bed  with  white  faces  and  trembling  lips,  hand  in 

261 


262  The  Squirrel-Cage 

hand,  like  sisters.  He  examined  the  child  silently,  swiftly, 
looking  with  a  face  of  inscrutable  blankness  at  the  clinical 
thermometer  with  which  he  had  taken  her  temperature. 
"Just  turn  her  so  she'll  lie  comfortably,"  he  told  'Stashie, 
"  and  then  you  stay  with  her  a  moment.  I  want  a  talk  with 
your  mistress." 

In  the  hall,  he  cast  at  Lydia  a  glance  of  almost  angry 
exhortation  to  summon  her  strength.  "  Are  you  fit  to  be  a 
mother  ?  "  he  asked  harshly. 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  said  Lydia ;  she  drew  a  long  breath 
and  took  hold  of  the  balustrade.  "  Yes,"  she  answered. 

"  Ariadne's  very  sick.  I  oughtn't  to  have  allowed  you 
to  wean  her  with  hot  weather  coming  on.  You'd  better 
wire  Paul." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  not  blenching.    "  What  else  can  I  do?  " 

;<  'Phone  to  the  hospital  for  a  trained  nurse,  start  some 
water  boiling  to  sterilize  things,  and  get  somebody  here  in 
a  hurry  to  go  to  the  nearest  drug  store  for  me.  I'll  go  back 
to  her  now." 

"  Is  she  —  is  she  —  dangerously  —  ?  "  asked  Lydia  in  a 
low,  steady  voice. 

"  Yes ;  she  is,"  he  said  unsparingly. 

The  telegram  Lydia  sent  her  husband  read :  "  Ariadne 
suddenly  taken  very  sick.  Dr.  Melton  says  dangerously. 
He  thinks  she  does  not  suffer  much,  though  she  seems  to. 
When  shall  I  expect  you  ?  " 

The  answer  she  received  in  a  few  hours  read :  "  Have 
two  nurses.  Get  Jones,  Cleveland,  consultation.  Impossi- 
ble to  leave." 

It  was  handed  her  as  she  was  running  up  the  stairs  with 
a  pitcher  of  hot  water.  She  read  it,  as  she  did  everything 
that  day,  in  a  dream-like  rapidity  and  quietness,  and  showed 
it  to  Dr.  Melton  without  comment.  He  handed  it  back 
without  a  word.  Later,  he  turned  for  an  instant  from  the 
little  bed  to  say,  irrelevantly,  "  Peterson,  of  Toledo,  would 
be  better  than  Jones,  if  I  have  to  have  anybody.  But  so 
far,  it's  simple  enough  —  damnably  simple." 

He  was  obliged  to  leave  for  a  time  after  this,  called  by 


A  Purification  of  the  Heart  263 

a  patient  at  the  point  of  death.  That  seemed  quite  natural 
to  Lydia.  Death  was  thick  in  the  air.  He  left  the  baby 
to  a  clear-eyed,  deft-handed,  impersonal  trained  nurse,  on 
whom  Lydia  waited  slavishly,  sitting  motionless  in  a  corner 
of  the  room  until  she  was  sent  for  something,  then  flying 
noiselessly  upon  her  errand. 

Her  mother  and  father  were  out  of  town,  and  Marietta 
limited  herself  to  telephoning  frequent  inquiries.  She  told 
'Stashie  to  tell  her  sister  she  knew  she  would  be  only  in  the 
way,  with  two  nurses  in  the  house.  Lydia  made  'Stashie 
answer  all  the  telephone  calls.  She  felt  that  if  she  broke 
her  silence,  if  she  tried  to  speak  —  and  then  she  could  not 
bear  to  be  out  of  the  sight  of  the  little  figure  with  the 
flushed  cheeks,  moving  her  head  back  and  forth  on  the  pil- 
low and  gazing  about  with  bright,  unseeing  eyes.  As  night 
came  on,  she  began  to  give,  in  a  voice  not  her  own,  little 
piteous  cries  of  suffering,  or  strange  delirious  mockeries  of 
her  pretty  laughter  and  quaint,  unintelligible,  prattling  talk. 
Once,  as  the  long,  hot  night  stood  still,  the  baby  called  out, 
quite  clearly :  "  Mamma !  Mamma ! "  It  was  the  first 
time  she  had  ever  said  it 

Lydia  sprang  up  and  rushed  toward  the  bed  like  an  in- 
sane person,  her  arms  outstretched,  her  eyes  glittering. 
Dr.  Melton  did  not  forbid  her  to  take  up  her  child,  but  he 
said  in  a  neutral  tone,  "  It  would  be  better  for  her  to  lie 
perfectly  quiet." 

Lydia  stopped  short,  shuddering.  The  doctor  did  not 
take  his  eyes  from  his  little  patient.  After  a  moment  the 
mother  went  slowly  back  to  her  seat.  "  Hand  me  the  ther- 
mometer," said  the  doctor  to  the  nurse. 

In  the  early  morning  came  a  telegram  from  Paul.  "  Wire 
me  frequently  baby's  condition.  Spare  no  expense  in  treat- 
ment." 

Lydia  answered :  "  Ariadne  slightly  worse.  Doctor  says 
crisis  in  three  days." 

This  time  she  put  in  no  extra  information  as  to  the  baby's 
suffering,  and  her  message  was  under  ten  words,  like  his' 
own.  She  despatched  him  thereafter  a  bulletin  every  four 


264  The  Squirrel-Cage 

or  five  hours.  They  ran  mostly  to  the  effect  that  Ariadne 
was  about  the  same. 

The  doctor  came  and  went,  the  nurses  relieved  each  other, 
the  telephone  rang  for  Marietta's  inquiries,  Flora  Burgess 
called  once  a  day  to  get  the  news  from  'Stashie.  Lydia  was 
slave  to  the  nurses,  alert  for  the  slightest  service  she  could 
render  them,  divining,  with  a  desperate  intuition,  their 
needs  before  they  were  formulated.  'Stashie  was  the  only 
person  who  paid  the  least  attention  to  her,  'Stashie  the 
only  phenomena  to  break  in  on  the  solitude  that  surrounded 
her  like  an  illimitable  plain.  'Stashie  made  her  eat.  'Sta- 
shie saw  to  it  that  once  or  twice  she  lay  down.  'Stashie 
combed  her  hair,  and  bathed  her  white  face  —  most  of  all, 
'Stashie  went  about  with  eyes  that  reflected  faithfully  the 
suffering  in  Lydia's  own.  She  said  very  little,  but  as  they 
passed,  the  two  women  sometimes  exchanged  brief  words: 
"  Niver  you  think  it  possible,  Mis'  Hollister !  " 

"  No,"  Lydia  would  answer  resolutely ;  "  it's  not  pos- 
sible." 

But  as  the  hours  slowly  filed  past  the  doctor  assured  her 
bluntly  that  it  would  be  quite  possible.  "  There's  a  fight- 
ing chance,"  he  said,  "  and  nothing  more."  He  added  re- 
lentlessly, "  If  I  hadn't  been  such  a  fool  as  to  let  you  wean 
her—" 

There  was  in  his  manner  none  of  his  usual  tenderness  to 
his  godchild.  One  would  have  thought  he  scarcely  saw  her. 
He  was  the  physician  wholly.  Lydia  was  grateful  to  him 
for  this.  She  could  not  have  borne  his  tenderness  then,  but 
his  professional  concentration  left  her  horribly  alone. 

No,  not  alone  1  There  was  always  'Stashie  —  silent 
'Stashie,  with  red  eyes,  her  heart  bleeding.  But  even 
'Stashie's  loyal  heart  could  not  know  all  the  bitterness  of 
Lydia's.  'Stashie's  breasts  did  not  swell  and  throb,  as  if 
in  mockery.  'Stashie  did  not  hear,  over  and  over,  "  If  she 
had  not  been  weaned  — " 

On  the  night  and  near  the  hour  when  the  crisis  was  ex- 
.pected,  Lydia  was  at  the  end  of  the  hall,  where  she  had 
installed  an  oil-stove.  She  was  heating  water  needed  for 


A  Purification  of  the  Heart  265 

some  of  the  processes  of  the  sick  room.  It  had  begun  to 
steam  up  in  the  thick,  hot  night  air,  was  singing  loudly,  and 
would  boil  in  an  instant.  She  sat  looking  at  it  in  her  tense, 
trembling  quiet.  There  was  no  light  but  the  blue  flame  of 
the  stove. 

Suddenly  there  rang  loudly  in  her  ears  the  question  to 
which  she  had  deafened  herself  with  such  crucifying  effort 
— "  What  if  Ariadne  should  die  ?  "  It  was  as  though  some- 
one had  called  to  her.  She  looked  down  into  the  black 
abyss  from  which  she  had  willfully  turned  away  her  eyes, 
and  saw  that  it  was  fathomless.  A  throe  of  revolt  and 
hatred  shook  her.  She  bowed  her  head  to  her  knees, 
racked  by  an  anguish  compared  with  which  the  torture  of 
childbirth  was  nothing;  and  out  of  this  deadly  pain  came 
forth,  as  in  childbirth,  something  alive  —  a  vision  as  swift, 
as  passing  as  a  glimpse  into  the  gates  of  Paradise ;  a  blind- 
ing certainty  of  immensity,  of  the  hugeness  of  the  whole  of 
which  she  and  Ariadne  were  a  part ;  of  the  sacredness  of 
life,  which  was  to  be  lived  sacredly,  even  if  —  She  raised 
her  head,  living  a  more  exalted  instant  than  she  had  ever 
dreamed  she  would  know. 

The  water  broke  into  quick,  dancing  bubbles.  In  a 
period  of  time  incalculably  short,  transfiguration  had  come 
to  her. 

The  door  at  the  other  end  of  the  hall  opened  and  Dr. 
Melton's  light,  uneven  footstep  echoed  back  of  her.  She 
did  not  turn.  He  laid  a  hand  on  her  shoulder.  It  was 
trembling,  and  with  a  wonderful  consciousness  of  endless 
courage  she  turned  to  comfort  him.  His  lips  were  twitch- 
ing so  that  for  an  instant  he  could  not  speak.  Then, 
"  She'll  pull  through.  I'm  pretty  sure  now,  she'll  — "  he 
got  out  and  leaned  against  the  wall. 

Lydia  took  him  into  a  protecting  embrace  as  though  it 
were  his  baby  who  had  turned  back  from  the  gates  of  death. 
She  had  come  into  a  larger  heritage.  She  was  mother  to  all 
that  suffered.  Looking  down  on  the  head  which,  for  an 
instant,  lay  on  her  bosom,  she  noticed  how  white  the  hair 
was.  He  was  an  old  man,  her  godfather,  he  had  been  on 


266  The  Squirrel-Cage 

a  long  strain  — .  He  looked  up  at  her.  And  then  in  an  in- 
stant it  was  over.  He  had  mastered  himself  and  had 
grasped  the  handle  of  the  basin. 

"  How  long  has  this  been  boiling?  "  he  asked. 

Lydia  pointed  to  her  watch,  hanging  on  the  wall.  "  Three 
minutes  by  that,"  she  said.  "  May  I  leave  to  tell  'Stashie?  " 

The  doctor  nodded  absently. 

Neither  spoke  of  Paul. 

Lydia  hurried  across  the  dark,  silent  house  with  swift 
sureness.  The  happiness  she  was  about  to  confer  cast  a 
radiance  upon  her.  She  touched  the  door  to  the  servant's 
room,  and  ran  her  fingers  lightly  over  it  to  find  the  knob. 
Faint  as  the  noise  was,  it  was  answered  instantly  by  a  stir 
inside.  There  was  a  thud  of  bare  feet  and  a  quick  rush. 
Lydia  felt  the  door  swing  open  before  her  in  the  darkness 
and  spoke  quickly  to  the  trembling,  breathing  form  she 
divined  there,  "  The  doctor  says  she's  safe." 

Strong  arms  were  about  her,  hot  tears  not  her  own  rained 
down  on  her  face.  Before  she  knew  it,  she  was  swept  to 
her  knees,  where,  locked  in  the  other's  close  embrace,  she 
felt  the  big  heart  thump  loud  against  her  own  and  heard 
go  up  above  her  head  a  wild  "  Oh,  God !  Oh,  Mary 
Mother!  Oh,  Christ!  Oh,  Mary  Mother!  Glory  be  to 
God!  Hail,  Mary,  Mother  of  God!  Thanks  be  to  God! 
Thanks  be — " 

Kneeling  there  in  the  blackness,  with  her  servant's  arms 
around  her,  Lydia  thought  it  the  first  prayer  she  had  ever 
heard. 

Ariadne  grew  well  with  the  miraculous  rapidity  of  chil- 
dren, and  when  Paul  came  back  was  almost  herself  again, 
if  a  little  thinner. 

It  was  upon  Lydia  that  Paul's  eyes  fastened,  Lydia  very 
white,  her  face  almost  translucent,  her  starry  eyes  contra- 
dicting the  tremor  of  her  lips.  He  drew  her  to  him,  crying 
out :  "  Why,  Lydia  darling,  you  look  as  though  you'd  been 
drawn  through  a  knot-hole!  This  has  been  enough  sight 


A  Purification  of  the  Heart  267 

harder  on  you  than  on  the  baby !  What  in  the  world  wore 
you  out  so  ?  I  thought  you  had  two  nurses !  " 

He  looked  closely  into  her  face,  seeing  more  changes: 
"  Why,  you  poor,  poor,  poor  thing !  "  he  said  compassion- 
ately. "  You  look  positively  years  older." 

"  Oh,  I  am  that,"  she  told  him,  seeming  to  speak,  oddly 
enough,  he  thought,  exultantly. 

"  You  just  shouldn't  allow  yourself  to  get  so  wrought  up 
over  Ariadne,"  he  expostulated  affectionately.  "  You'll 
wear  yourself  out!  What  earthly  good  did  it  do  the  baby? 
Sickness  is  a  matter  for  professionals,  I  tell  you  what! 
You  had  the  two  nurses  and  your  precious  old  Dr.  Melton 
that  you  swear  by!  What  more  could  be  done?  That's 
the  reason  I  didn't  come  back.  I  knew  well  enough  that 
there  wasn't  an  earthly  thing  I  could  do  to  help." 

Lydia  looked  at  him  so  strangely  that  he  noticed  it. 
"  Oh,  of  course  I  could  have  been  company  for  you.  But 
that  was  the  only  thing!  Getting  the  baby  well  was  the 
business  of  the  hour,  wasn't  it  now?  And  the  doctor  and 
nurses  were  looking  out  for  that.  Besides,  you  had  'Sta- 
shie  to  wait  on  you." 

"  Yes ;  I  had  'Stashie,"  admitted  Lydia. 

Paul  perceived  uneasily  some  enigmatic  quality  in  her 
quiet  answer,  and  went  on  reasonably :  "  Now,  Lydia, 
don't  go  making  yourself  out  a  martyr  because  I  didn't 
come  back.  You  know  I'd  have  come  if  there  was  any- 
thing to  be  done!  I'd  have  come  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth  to  help  you  nurse  her  if  we'd  had  to  do  that!  But, 
thank  the  Lord,  I  make  enough  money  so  we  could  do 
better  by  the  little  tad  than  that ! " 

"  Suppose  I  had  gone  to  the  theater  that  night,"  asked 
Lydia  slowly.  "  There  was  nothing  I  could  do  here." 

Paul  was  justifiably  aggrieved.  "  Good  Lord,  Lydia ! 
I  wasn't  off  amusing  myself!  I  was  doing  business!" 

His  special  accent  for  the  word  was  never  more  pro- 
nounced. 

"  Making  money  to  pay  for  the  trained  nurses  that  saved 


268  The  Squirrel-Cage 

her  life,"  he  ended.  His  conviction  of  the  unanswerable 
force  of  this  statement  put  him  again  in  good  humor. 
"  Now,  little  madame,  you  listen  to  me.  You're  going  to 
take  a  junketing  honeymoon  off  with  me,  or  I'll  know  the 
reason  why!  I'm  going  to  take  you  up  to  Put-in-Bay  for 
a  vacation!  Pretty  near  all  our  card-club  gang  are  there 
now,  and  we'll  have  a  gay  old  time  and  cheer  you  up! 
I  bet  you  just  let  yourself  go,  and  worried  yourself  into  a 
fever,  didn't  you  ?  " 

During  this  speech  Lydia  stood  leaning  against  him,  feel- 
ing the  cloth  of  his  sleeve  rough  on  her  bare  forearm, 
feeling  the  stir  and  life  of  his  body,  the  warmth  of  his 
breath  on  her  face.  She  had  an  impulse  to  scream  wildly 
to  him,  as  though  to  make  him  hear  and  stop  and  turn,  be- 
fore he  finally  disappeared  from  her  sight;  and  she  faced 
him  dumbly.  There  were  no  words  to  tell  him  —  she  tried 
to  speak,  but  before  his  absent,  kind,  wandering  eyes,  a 
foreknowledge  of  her  own  inarticulateness  closed  her  lips. 
He  had  not  been  there,  and  so  he  would  never  know.  She 
stirred,  moved  away,  and  rearranged  the  flowers  in  a  vase. 
"  Oh,  yes ;  I  worried,  of  course,"  she  said.  "  The  baby  was 
awfully  sick  for  three  days." 

She  felt  desperately  that  she  was  failing  in  the  most  ob- 
vious duty  not  to  try  to  make  him  understand  what  had 
happened  in  his  absence.  She  bethought  herself  of  one 
fact,  the  mere  statement  of  which  should  tell  him  a  thou- 
sand times  more  eloquently  than  words,  something  of  what 
she  had  suffered.  "  The  doctor  told  me  twice  that  she 
wouldn't  have  been  sick  if  she  hadn't  been  weaned."  She 
said  this  with  an  accent  of  immense  significance,  clasping 
her  hands  together  hard. 

Paul  was  unpacking  his  suit-case.  "  Great  Scott !  You 
nursed  her  six  months ! "  he  said  conclusively,  over  his 
shoulder.  "  Besides,  you  had  to  wean  her  —  don't  you  re- 
member ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  remember,"  said  Lydia.  Her  hands  dropped 
to  her  side? 

"  Don't  they  get  over  things  quickly  ?  "  commented  Paul, 


A  Purification  of  the  Heart  269 

looking  around  at  the  baby.  "  To  see  her  creeping  around 
like  a  little  hop-toad  and  squeaking  that  rubber  bunny  — 
why,  I  declare,  I  don't  believe  that  anything's  been  the  mat- 
ter with  her  at  all.  You  and  the  doctor  lost  your  nerve,  I 
guess." 

Three  or  four  days  later  he  was  called  away  again. 
Their  regular  routine  began.  The  long,  slow  days,  slid  past 
the  house  in  Bellevue  in  endless,  dreamy  procession.  Ari- 
adne grew  fast,  developing  constantly  new  faculties,  new 
powers.  By  the  end  of  the  summer  she  was  no  longer  a 
baby,  but  a  person.  The  young  mother  felt  the  same  mys- 
terious forces  of  change  and  growth  working  irresistibly  in 
herself.  The  long  summer,  thoughtful  and  solitary,  marked 
the  end  of  one  period  in  her  life. 

She  looked  forward  shrinkingly  to  the  winter.  What 
would  happen  to  this  new  self  whose  growth  in  her  was 
keeping  pace  with  her  child's?  What  would  happen  next? 


CHAPTER  XXV 
A  BLACK  MILESTONE 

WHAT  happened  was,  in  the  first  week  of  October,  the 
sudden  death  of  her  father.  It  was  sudden  only  to  his 
wife  and  daughter,  whom,  as  always,  the  Judge  had  tried 
to  spare,  at  all  costs,  the  knowledge  of  anything  unpleasant. 
Dr.  Melton  thought  that  perhaps  the  strong  man's  incredu- 
lity of  anything  for  him  to  fear  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
his  repeated  refusals  to  allow  his  wife  or  daughter  to  be 
warned  of  the  danger  of  apoplexy.  Without  that  hypoth- 
esis, it  seemed  incredible,  he  told  Mrs.  Sandworth,  that 
so  kind  a  man  could  be  so  cruel. 

"  Everything's  incredible,"  murmured  Mrs.  Sandworth, 
her  handkerchief  at  her  eyes,  her  loving  heart  aching  for 
the  newly-made  widow,  her  lifelong  friend. 

Her  brother  did  not  answer.  He  sat,  gnawing  savagely 
on  his  finger  nails,  his  thoughts  centered,  as  always,  on  his 
darling  Lydia  —  fatherless. 

He  had  prided  himself  on  his  acute  insight  into  human 
nature  in  general,  and  upon  his  specialized,  intensified 
knowledge  of  those  two  women  whom  he  had  known  so 
long  and  studied  so  minutely ;  but  "  I've  been  a  conceited 
blockhead,  and  vanity's  treacherous  as  well  as  damnable," 
he  cried  out  to  his  sister  some  days  later,  amazed  beyond 
expression  at  the  way  in  which  their  loss  affected  Lydia  and 
her  mother. 

Mrs.  Emery's  attitude  was  a  revelation  to  him,  a  revela- 
tion that  left  him  almost  as  angrily  full  of  grief  as  she 
herself.  He  had  thought  best  on  the  whole  not  to  disclose 
to  her  the  substance  of  the  several  conversations  he  had 
had  with  his  dead  friend  on  the  subject  of  finances.  With 

270 


A  Black  Milestone  271 

two  prosperous  sons,  the  widow  would  be  well  taken  care 
of,  he  thought,  perhaps  adding  with  a  little  acridity,  "  just 
as  she  always  has  been,  without  a  thought  on  her  part." 
But  when  Mrs.  Emery,  divining  the  truth  with  an  awful 
intuition,  came  flying  to  him  after  the  settlement,  he  was  not 
proof  against  the  fury  of  her  interrogations.  If  she  wanted 
to  know,  he  would  tell  her,  he  thought  grimly  to  himself. 

"  There  is  nothing  left,"  she  began,  bursting  into  his 
office,  "  but  the  house,  which  has  a  mortgage,  and  the  in- 
surance —  nothing !  Nothing !  " 

It  was  rather  soon  for  her  to  be  resentful,  the  doctor 
thought  bitterly,  misreading  the  misery  on  her  face.  "  No," 
he  said. 

"  Had  the  Judge  lost  any  money  —  do  you  know  ?  " 

"No;  I  think  not." 

"  But  where  —  what  —  we  had  at  one  time  five  thousand 
dollars  at  least  in  the  savings  bank.  I  happened  to  know 
of  that  small  account.  I  supposed  of  course  there  was 
more.  There  is  no  trace  of  even  that,  the  administrator 
says." 

"  That  went  into  the  extra  expenses  of  the  year  Lydia 
made  her  debut.  And  her  wedding  cost  a  great  deal,  he 
told  me  one  day  —  and  her  trousseau  —  and  other  expenses 
at  that  time." 

Used  as  the  doctor  was  to  the  universal  custom  of  di- 
vided interests  among  his  well-to-do  patients,  it  did  not 
seem  too  strange  to  him  to  be  giving  information  about 
her  own  affairs  to  this  gray-haired  matron.  She  was  not 
the  first  widow  to  whom  he  had  been  forced  to  break  bad 
news  of  her  husband's  business. 

Mrs.  Emery  stared  at  him,  her  dry  lips  apart,  a  glaze 
over  her  eyes.  He  thought  her  expression  strange.  As 
she  said  nothing,  he  added,  with  a  little  sour  pleasure  in 
defending  his  dead  friend,  even  if  it  should  give  a  prick 
to  a  survivor,  "  The  Judge  was  so  scrupulously  honest,  you 
know."  The  widow  sat  down  and  laid  her  arms  across  the 
table,  still  staring  hard  at  the  doctor.  It  came  to  him  that 
she  was  not  looking  at  him  at  all,  but  at  some  devastating  in- 


272  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ner  sight,  which  seared  her  heart,  but  from  which  she  could 
not  turn  away  her  eyes.  He  himself  turned  away,  beginning 
to  be  aware  of  some  passion  within  her  beyond  his  divina- 
tion. There  was  a  long  silence. 

Finally,  "  That  was  the  reason  he  would  not  stop  work- 
ing," said  the  woman  in  a  voice  which  made  the  physician 
whirl  about.  He  looked  sharply  into  her  face,  and  what 
he  saw  there  took  him  in  one  stride  to  her  side.  She  kept 
her  stony  eyes  still  on  the  place  where  he  had  been  —  eyes 
that  saw  only,  as  though  for  the  first  time,  some  long  pro- 
cession of  past  events. 

"  I  see  everything  now,"  she  went  on  with  the  same  flat 
intonation.  "  He  could  not  stop.  That  was  the  reason 
why  he  would  never  rest." 

She  got  slowly  to  her  feet,  smoothing  over  and  over  one 
side  of  her  skirt  with  a  strange  automatic  gesture.  She 
was  looking  full  into  the  doctor's  face  now.  "  I  have 
killed  him,"  she  said  quietly,  and  fell  as  though  struck 
down  by  a  blow  from  behind. 

Her  long,  long  illness  was  spent  in  the  Melton's  home, 
with  the  doctor  in  attendance  and  Julia  Sandworth,  utterly 
devoted,  constantly  at  hand.  The  old  Emery  house,  the 
outward  symbol  of  her  married  life,  was  sold,  and  the  big 
"  yard  "  cut  up  into  building  lots  long  before  she  was  able 
to  sit  up.  Lydia  came  frequently,  but,  acting  on  the  doc- 
tor's express  command,  never  brought  Ariadne.  The  out- 
breaks of  self-reproach  and  embittered  grief  that  were 
likely  to  burst  upon  the  widow,  even  in  the  midst  of  one 
of  her  quiet,  listless  days,  were  not,  he  said,  for  a  child  to 
see  or  hear,  especially  such  a  sensitive  little  thing  as  Ari- 
adne. Those  wild  bursts  of  remorse  were  delirious,  he  told 
Lydia,  but  to  his  sister  he  said  he  wished  they  were.  "  I 
imagine  they  are  the  only  times  when  she  comes  really  to 
herself,"  he  added  sadly. 

The  especial  agony  for  the  sick  woman  was  that  nothing 
of  what  had  happened  seemed  to  her  now  in  the  least  neces- 
sary. "  Why,  if  I  had  only  known  —  if  I  had  only  dreamed 
how  things  were — "  she  cried  incessantly  to  those  about 


'I    SEE   EVERYTHING    NOW,"    SHE   WENT    ON.      "HE    COULD    NOT    STOP " 


A  Black  Milestone  273 

her.  "  What  did  I  care  about  anything  compared  with 
Nat!  I  loved  my  husband!  What  did  I  care  —  if  I  had 
only  dreamed  that  —  if  I  had  only  known  what  I  was 
doing!" 

Dr.  Melton  labored  in  heart-sick  pity  to  remove  her  fixed 
idea,  which  soon  became  a  monomania,  that  she  alone  was 
to  blame  for  the  Judge's  death.  It  now  seemed  to  him,  in 
his  sympathy  with  her  grief,  that  she  had  been  like  a  child 
entrusted  with  some  frail,  priceless  object  and  not  warned 
of  its  fragility.  She  herself  cried  out  constantly  with 
astonished  hatred  upon  a  world  that  had  left  her  so. 

"If  anyone  had  warned  me  —  had  given  me  the  least 
idea  that  it  was  so  serious  —  I  could  have  lived  in  three 
rooms  —  we  had  been  poor  —  what  did  I  care  for  anything 
but  Nathaniel!  I  only  did  all  those  things  because  —  be- 
cause there  was  nothing  else  to  do ! " 

Lydia  tried  to  break  the  current  with  a  reminder  of  the. 
sweet  memories  of  the  past.  "  Father  loved  you  so !  He 
loved  to  give  you  what  you  wanted,  Mother  dear." 

"  What  I  wanted !  I  wanted  my  husband.  I  want  my 
husband !  "  the  widow  screamed  like  a  person  on  the  rack. 

The  doctor  sent  Lydia  away  with  a  hasty  gesture.  "  You 
must  not  see  her  when  she  is  violent,"  he  said.  "  You  would 
never  forget  it." 

It  was  something  he  himself  never  forgot,  used  as  he 
was  to  pitiful  scenes  in  the  life  of  suffering  humanity.  He 
was  almost  like  a  sick  person  himself,  going  about  his  prac- 
tice with  sunken  eyes  and  gray  face.  His  need  for  sympathy 
was  so  great  that  he  abandoned  the  tacit  silence  about  the 
Emerys  which  had  existed  between  him  and  Rankin  ever 
since  Lydia's  marriage,  and,  going  out  to  the  house  in  the 
Black  Rock  woods,  unburdened  to  the  younger  man  the 
horror  of  his  heart. 

"  She's  suffering,"  he  cried.  "  She's  literally  heart- 
broken! She  is!  It's  real!  And  what  has  she  had  to 
make  up  for  it?  Oh,  it's  monstrous!  One  thing  she  says 
keeps  ringing  in  my  ears.  That  gray-haired  woman,  a  hu- 
man being  my  own  age  —  the  silly,  tragic,  childish  thing  she 


274  The  Squirrel-Cage 

keeps  saying  — '  I  only  did  all  those  things  —  I  only  wanted 
all  those  things  —  because  there  was  nothing  else ! '  Noth- 
ing else! "  He  turned  on  his  host  with  a  fierce  "  Good  God ! 
She's  right.  What  else  was  there  ever  for  —  for  any  wo- 
man of  her  class — " 

Rankin  pushed  his  shivering,  fidgeting  visitor  into  a  chair 
and,  laying  a  big  hand  on  his  shoulder,  said  with  a  faint 
smile :  "  Maybe  I  can  divert  your  mind  for  an  instant  with 
a  story  —  another  one  of  my  great-aunt's,  only  it's  an  old 
one  this  time ;  you've  probably  heard  it  —  about  the  old  man 
who  said  to  his  wife  on  his  death-bed,  *  I've  tried  to  be  a 
good  husband  to  you,  dear.  It's  been  hard  on  my  teeth 
sometimes,  but  I've  always  eaten  the  crusts  and  let  you  have 
the  soft  bread.'  You  remember  what  the  wife's  answer 
was?" 

"  No,"  said  the  doctor  frowning. 

"  It's  the  epitome  of  tragedy.  She  said,  '  Oh,  my  dear, 
and  I  like  crusts  so ! ' ' 

The  doctor  stared  into  the  fire.  "  Do  you  mean  —  there's 
work  for  them  ?  " 

"  I  mean  work  for  them,"  repeated  the  younger  man. 

The  word  echoed  in  a  long  silence. 

"  It's  the  most  precious  possession  we  have,"  said  Rankin 
finally.  "  We  ought  to  share  more  evenly." 

The  doctor  rose  to  go.  "  Generally  I  forget  that  we're 
of  different  generations,"  he  said  with  apparent  irrelevance, 
"  but  there  are  times  when  I  feel  it  keenly." 

"  Why  now  especially  ?  "  Rankin  wondered.  "  I've  stated 
a  doctrine  that  is  yours,  too." 

"  No ;  you  wouldn't  see,  of  course.  Yes ;  it's  my  doctrine 
—  in  theory.  I  believe  it,  as  people  believe  in  Christianity. 
I  should  be  equally  loath  to  see  anybody  doubt  it,  or  practice 
it.  Ah,  I'm  a  fool!  Besides,  I  was  born  in  Kentucky. 
And  I'm  sixty-seven  years  old." 

He  shut  the  door  behind  him  with  emphasis. 

He  was  on  his  way  to  Bellevue  to  see  Lydia.  Knowing 
her  tender  heart,  he  had  expected  to  see  her  drowned  in 
grief  over  her  father's  death.  Her  dry-eyed  quiet  made 


A  Black  Milestone  275 

him  uneasy.  That  morning,  he  found  her  holding  Ariadne 
on  her  knees  and  telling  her  in  a  self-possessed,  low  tone, 
which  did  not  tremble,  some  stories  of  "  when  grandfather 
was  a  little  boy." 

"  I  don't  want  her  to  grow  up  without  knowing  some- 
thing of  my  father,"  she  explained  to  the  doctor. 

Her  godfather  laid  a  hand  on  her  arm.  "  Don't  keep  the 
tears  back  so,  Lydia,"  he  implored. 

She  gave  him  as  great  a  shock  of  surprise  as  her  mother 
had  done. 

"  If  I  could  cry,"  she  said  quietly,  "  it  would  be  because 
I  feel  so  little  sorrow.  I  do  not  miss  my  father  at  all  —  or 
hardly  at  all." 

The  doctor  caught  at  his  chair  and  stared. 

"  How  should  I  ? "  she  went  on  drearily.  "  I  almost 
never  saw  him.  I  never  spoke  to  him  about  anything  that 
really  mattered.  I  never  let  him  know  me  —  or  anything  I 
really  felt." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  "  cried  the  doctor.  "  You 
always  lived  at  home." 

"  I  never  lived  with  my  father.  He  was  always  away  in 
the  morning  before  I  was  up.  I  was  away,  or  busy,  in  the 
evening  when  he  was  there.  On  Sundays  he  never  went 
to  church  as  Mother  and  I  did  —  I  suppose  now  because  he 
had  some  other  religion  of  his  own.  But  if  he  had  I 
never  knew  what  it  was  —  or  anything  else  that  was  in  his 
mind  or  heart.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  could.  He 
tried  to  love  me  —  I  remember  so  many  times  now  —  and 
that  makes  me  cry !  —  how  he  tried  to  love  me !  He  was 
so  glad  to  see  me  when  I  got  home  from  Europe  —  but  he 
never  knew  anything  that  happened  to  me.  I  told  you  once 
before  that  when  I  had  pneumonia  and  nearly  died  Mother 
kept  it  from  him  because  he  was  on  a  big  case.  It  was  all 
like  that  —  always.  He  never  knew." 

Dr.  Melton  broke  in,  his  voice  uncertain,  his  face  horri- 
fied :  "  Lydia,  I  cannot  let  you  go  on !  you  are  unfair  — 
you  shock  me.  You  are  morbid!  I  knew  your  father  in- 
timately. He  loved  you  beyond  expression.  He  would 


276  The  Squirrel-Cage 

have  done  anything  for  you.  But  his  profession  is  an 
exacting  one.  Put  yourself  in  his  place  a  little.  It  is  all 
or  nothing  in  the  law  —  as  in  business." 

"  When  you  bring  children  into  the  world,  you  expect  to 
have  them  cost  you  some  money,  don't  you?  You  know 
you  mustn't  let  them  die  of  starvation.  Why  oughtn't  you 
to  expect  to  have  them  cost  you  thought,  and  some  sharing 
of  your  life  with  them,  and  some  time  —  real  time,  not  just 
scraps  that  you  can't  use  for  business  ?  " 

As  the  doctor  faced  her,  open-mouthed  and  silent,  she 
went  on,  still  dry-eyed,  but  with  a  quaver  in  her  voice  that 
was  like  a  sob :  "  But,  oh,  the  worst  of  my  blame  is  for  my- 
self!  I  was  a  blind,  selfish,  self-centered  egotist.  I  could 
have  changed  things  if  I  had  only  tried  harder.  I  am  pay- 
ing for  it  now.  I  am  paying  for  it !  " 

She  took  her  child  up  in  her  arms  and  bent  over  the  dark 
silky  hair.  She  whispered,  "  It's  not  that  I  have  lost  my 
father.  I  never  had  a  father  —  but  you !  "  She  put  out  her 
hand  and  pressed  the  doctor's  hard.  "  And  my  poor  father 
had  no  daughter." 

She  set  the  child  on  the  floor  with  a  gesture  almost 
violent,  and  cried  out  loudly,  breaking  for  the  first  time  her 
cheerless  calm,  "  And  now  it  is  too  late !  " 

Ariadne  turned  her  rosy  round  face  to  her  mother's, 
startled,  almost  frightened.  Lydia  knelt  down  and  put  her 
arms  about  the  child.  She  looked  solemnly  into  her  god- 
father's eyes,  and,  as  though  she  were  taking  a  great  and 
resolute  oath,  she  said,  "  But  it  is  not  too  late  for  Ariadne." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
A  HINT  FROM  CHILDHOOD 

As  the  spring  advanced  and  Judge  Emery's  widow  recov- 
ered a  little  strength,  it  became  apparent  that  life  in  End- 
bury,  with  its  heartbreaking  associations,  would  be  intoler- 
able to  her.  In  anxious  family  councils  many  futile  plans 
were  suggested,  but  they  were  all  brushed  decisively  away 
by  the  unexpected  arrival  from  Oregon  of  the  younger  son 
of  the  family. 

One  day  in  May,  a  throbbingly  sunshiny  day,  full  of  a 
fierce  hot  vigor  of  vitality,  Lydia  was  with  her  mother  in 
the  Melton's  darkened  parlor.  As  so  often,  the  two  women 
had  been  crying  and  now  sat  in  a  weary  lethargy,  hand  in 
hand.  There  came  a  step  on  the  porch,  in  the  hall,  and  in 
the  doorway  stood  a  tall  stranger.  Lydia  looked  at  him 
blankly,  but  her  mother  gave  a  cry  and  flung  herself  into 
his  arms. 

"  I've  come  to  take  you  home  with  me,  Momma  dear,"  he 
said  quietly,  using  the  old  name  for  her,  which  had  been 
banished  from  the  Emery  household  since  Lydia's  early 
childhood.  The  sound  of  it  went  to  her  heart. 

The  newcomer  smiled  at  her  over  his  mother's  head.  It 
was  her  father's  smile,  the  quaint,  half -wistful,  humorous 
smile,  which  had  seemed  so  incongruous  on  the  Judge's 
powerful  face.  "  I'm  your  brother  Harry,  little  Lyddie," 
he  said,  "  and  I've  come  to  take  care  of  poor  Momma." 

During  all  that  summer  it  was  a  bitter  regret  to  Lydia  that 
she  had  seen  her  brother  so  short  a  time.  He  had  decreed 
that  the  sooner  his  mother  was  taken  away  from  Endbury, 
the  better  for  her,  and  Mrs.  Emery  had  clung  to  him,  as- 
senting passively  to  all  he  said,  and  peering  constantly,  with 

277 


278  The  Squirrel-Cage 

tear-blurred  eyes,  into  his  face  to  see  again  his  astonishing 
resemblance  to  his  father.  They  had  left  the  day  after  his 
arrival. 

He  had  found  time,  however,  to  go  out  to  Bellevue  for 
a  brief  visit,  to  see  Lydia's  home  and  her  little  daughter  — 
Paul  was  away  on  a  business  trip  —  and  the  half-hour  he 
spent  there  was  one  that  Lydia  never  forgot.  The  tall,  sun- 
burned Westerner,  with  his  kind,  humorous  eyes,  his  affec- 
tionate smile,  his  quaint,  homely  phrases,  haunted  the  house 
for  the  rest  of  the  summer.  The  time  of  his  stay  had  been 
too  breathlessly  short  for  any  serious  talk.  He  had  looked 
about  at  the  big,  handsome  house  with  a  half-mocking  awe, 
inspected  the  "  grounds  "  with  a  lively  interest  in  the  small 
horticultural  beginnings  Lydia  had  been  able  to  achieve, 
told  her  she  ought  to  see  his  two  hundred  acres  of  apple- 
trees;  and  for  the  time  that  was  left  before  his  trolley-car 
was  due  he  played  with  his  little  niece  and  talked  over  her 
head  to  his  sister. 

"She's  a  dandy,  Lyddie!  She's  a  jim-dandy  of  a  little 
girl !  She  ought  to  come  out  and  learn  to  ride  straddle  with 
her  cousins.  I  got  a  boy  about  her  age  —  say,  they'd  look 
fine  together!  He's  a  towhead,  like  all  the  rest  of  'em  — 
like  their  mother." 

For  months  afterward  Lydia  could  close  her  eyes  and  see 
again  the  transfigured  expression  that  had  come  over  his 
face  at  the  mention  of  his  wife.  "  Talk  about  luck ! "  he 
said,  after  a  moment's  pause,  "  there  never  was  such  luck 
as  my  getting  Annie.  Say,  I  wish  you  could  know  her, 
Lyddie.  I  tell  you  what  —  shoulder  to  shoulder,  every 
minute,  she's  stood  up  to  things  right  there  beside  me  for 
twelve  years  —  Lord !  It  don't  seem  more  than  six  months 
when  I  stop  to  think  about  it.  We  had  some  hard  sledding 
along  at  the  first,  but  with  the  two  of  us  pulling  together  — . 
She's  laughed  at  sickness  and  drought  and  bugs  and  floods. 
We're  all  through  that  now,  we're  doing  fine ;  but,  honest,  it 
was  worth  it,  to  know  Annie  through  and  through  as  I  do. 
There  isn't  a  thing  about  the  business  she  doesn't  know  as 
well  as  I  do,  and  good  reason  why,  too.  We've  worked  it 


A  Hint  from  Childhood  279 

all  out  together.  We've  stuck  close,  we  have.  I've  helped 
in  the  house  and  with  the  kids,  and  she's  come  right  out 
into  the  orchards  with  me.  Share  and  share  alike  —  that's 
our  motto." 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  caressing  Ariadne's  dark  hair 
gently,  and  reviewing  the  past  with  shining  eyes.  "  Lord ! 
Lord !  It's  been  a  good  life !  "  He  turned  to  his  sister  with 
a  smile.  "  Well,  Lyddie,  I  expect  you  know  something 
about  it,  too.  You  certainly  are  fixed  fine,  and  everybody 
says  you've  married  a  splendid  fellow." 

Lydia  leaned  forward  eagerly,  the  impulse  to  unburden 
herself  overwhelming.  "  Oh,  Paul  is  the  best  man  — "  she 
began,  "  so  true  and  kind  and  —  and  —  pure  —  but  Harry, 
we  don't  —  we  can't  —  his  business — "  She  turned  away 
from  her  brother's  too  keen  eyes  and  stared  blindly  at  the 
wall,  conscious  of  an  ache  in  her  heart  like  a  physical  hurt. 

Later,  as  they  were  talking  of  old  memories,  of  Lydia's 
childhood,  Harry  asked  suddenly :  "  How'd  you  happen  to 
give  your  little  girl  such  a  funny  name  ?  " 

It  was  a  question  that  had  not  been  put  to  Lydia  before. 
Her  family  had  taken  for  granted  that  it  was  a  feverish 
fancy  of  her  sick-bed.  She  gazed  at  her  brother  earnestly, 
and  was  about  to  speak  when  he  looked  at  his  watch  and 
stood  up,  glancing  uneasily  down  toward  the  trolley  track. 
It  was  too  late  —  he  would  be  gone  so  soon  —  like  some- 
thing she  had  dreamed.  "  Oh,  I  liked  the  name,"  she  said 
vaguely ;  adding,  "  Harry !  I  wish  you  could  stay  longer ! 
There's  so  much  I  should  like  to  talk  over  with  you.  Oh, 
how  I  wish  you'd  never  gone  away." 

"  You  come  out  and  see  us,"  he  urged.  "  It'd  do  you 
good  to  get  away  from  this  old  hole-in-the-ground !  We 
live  six  miles  from  a  neighbor,  so  you'd  have  to  get  along 
without  tea-parties,  but  I  bet  Annie  and  the  kids  would  give 
you  a  good  time  all  right." 

He  kissed  Lydia  good-by,  tossed  Ariadne  high  in  the  air, 
and  as  he  hurried  down  the  driveway  he  called  back  over 
his  shoulder :  "  Take  good  care  of  my  little  niece  for  me ! 
I  tell  you  it's  the  kids  that  count  the  most !  "  It  was  a  say- 


280  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ing  that  filled  ringingly  for  Lydia  the  long,  hot  days  of  the 
quiet  summer  that  ensued.  As  for  Ariadne,  she  did  not 
for  months  stop  talking  of  "  nice,  laughy,  Unkie  Hawy." 
Her  fluency  of  speech  was  increasing  out  of  all  proportion 
to  her  age. 

Whatever  slow  changes  might  be  taking  place  in  Lydia, 
went  on  silently  and  obscurely  during  that  summer ;  but  in ' 
the  fall  a  new  moral  horizon  burst  upon  her  with  the  reali- 
zation that  she  was  again  to  become  a  mother.  Another 
life  was  to  be  entrusted  to  her  hands,  to  hers  and  Paul's,  and 
with  the  knowledge  came  the  certainty  that  she  must  now 
begin  to  take  some  action  to  place  her  outer  life  more  in 
accord  with  her  new  inner  self.  It  would  be  the  worst 
moral  cowardice  longer  to  evade  the  issue. 

Thus  bravely  did  she  exhort  herself,  and,  though  shrink- 
ing with  apprehension  at  the  very  thought  of  entering 
upon  a  combat,  attempted  to  shame  herself  into  a  little 
courage. 

When  Paul  heard  of  his  wife's  hopes,  he  was  enchanted. 
He  cried  out  jubilantly:  "I  bet  you  it'll  be  a  boy  this 
time !  "  and  caught  her  to  him  in  an  embrace  of  affection  so 
ardent  that  for  a  moment  she  glowed  like  a  bride.  She 
clung  to  him,  happy  in  the  warmth  of  feeling  that,  respon- 
sive, as  always,  to  his  touch,  sprang  up  in  her;  and  when 
in  his  good-natured,  half -laughing,  dictatorial  way  he  made 
her  lie  down  at  once  and  promise  to  rest  and  be  quiet,  the 
boyish  absurdity  of  his  solicitude  was  sweet  to  her. 

He  disappeared  in  answer  to  a  telephone  call,  and  she 
closed  her  eyes,  savoring  the  pleasure  of  the  little  scene. 
How  she  needed  Paul  to  reconcile  her  to  life!  How  kind 
he  really  was !  How  good !  His  was  the  clean,  honorable 
affection  he  had  promised  her  on  their  wedding  day.  If  she 
were  to  have  any  faith  in  the  novels  she  read  (like  most 
American  women  of  the  leisure  class,  her  education  after 
her  marriage  consisted  principally  in  reading  the  novels 
people  talked  about),  if  there  was  any  truth  in  what  she 
read  in  these  stories,  she  felt  she  was  blest  far  above  most 
women  in  that  there  had  come  to  her  since  her  marriage  no 


A  Hint  from  Childhood  281 

revelation  of  a  hidden,  unclean  side  to  her  husband's  na- 
ture. 

But  Lydia  had  never  felt  herself  closely  touched  by  read- 
ing; it  all  seemed  remote  from  her  own  life  and  problems. 
The  sexual  questions  on  which  the  plots  invariably  turned, 
which  formed  the  very  core  and  center  of  the  lives  of  the 
various  female  characters,  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  accord- 
ing to  her  honest  observation  of  her  acquaintances,  a  very 
subordinate  place  in  the  average  American  life  about  her. 
The  marital  unhappiness,  estrangement,  and  fragmentary 
incompleteness  in  the  circle  she  knew,  over  which  she  had 
grieved  and  puzzled,  had  nothing  to  do  with  what  novels 
mean  by  "  unfaithfulness."  The  women  of  Endbury,  un- 
like the  heroines  of  fiction,  did  not  fear  that  their  husbands 
would  fall  in  love  with  other  women.  The  men  of  End- 
bury  spent  as  little  time  in  sentimentalizing  over  other 
men's  wives  as  they  did  over  their  own. 

She  often  wondered  why  writers  did  not  treat  of  the 
other  problems  that  beset  her  class  —  for  instance,  why  it 
was  only  women  in  frontier  conditions,  like  Harry's  wife, 
who  could  share  in  their  husband's  lives ;  why  nobody  tried 
to  change  things  so  that  they  could  do  more  of  their  part 
in  the  work  of  the  world ;  why  they  could  not  have  a  share 
in  the  activities  that  gave  other  men,  even  little  boys  like 
Walter,  so  much  closer  knowledge  of  their  husbands'  char- 
acters than  they,  their  wives,  had.  She  had  a  dim  notion, 
caught  from  stray  indications  in  the  magazines,  that  writers 
were  considering  such  questions  in  books  other  than  novels, 
but  she  had  no  idea  how  to  search  them  out.  The  woman's 
club  to  which  she  belonged  was  occupied  with  the  art  of 
Masaccio,  who  was,  so  a  visitor  from  Chicago's  aesthetic 
circles  informed  them,  the  "  latest  thing  "  in  art  interests. 

She  decided  to  ask  Paul  if  he  had  heard  of  such  books. 
She  would  ask  him  so  many  such  questions  in  the  new  life 
that  was  to  begin.  They  had  been  married  more  than  three 
years  and,  so  far  as  their  relations  to  each  other  went,  they 
were  by  no  means  inharmonious ;  but  of  the  close-knit,  deep- 
rooted  intimacy  of  soul  and  mind  that  had  been  her  dream 


282  The  Squirrel-Cage 

of  married  life,  there  had  not  been  even  a  beginning.  Well, 
she  told  herself  bravely,  four  years  were  but  a  short  period 
in  a  lifetime.  They  were  both  so  young  yet.  They  could 
begin  now. 

Paul  came  back  from  the  telephone,  note-book  in  hand, 
jotting  down  some  figures.  He  smiled  at  her  over  the  top  of 
the  book,  and  before  he  sat  down  to  his  desk  he  covered  her 
carefully  with  a  shawl,  stroked  her  hair,  and  closed  her  eyes, 
saying  with  an  absent  tenderness :  "  There !  take  a  nap, 
dear,  while  I  finish  these  notes." 

He  looked  supremely  satisfied  with  himself  in  the  instant 
before  he  plunged  into  his  calculations,  and  Lydia  guessed 
that  he  was  congratulating  himself  on  having  remembered 
her  in  the  midst  of  absorbing  business  cares.  She  lay  look- 
ing at  him  as  he  worked,  her  mind  full  of  busy  thoughts. 

Chiefly,  as  she  went  over  their  situation,  she  felt  guilty 
to  think  how  entirely  apart  from  him  all  her  real  life  was 
passed.  The  doubts,  the  racking  spiritual  changes,  that 
had  come  to  her,  she  had  kept  all  to  herself;  and  yet  she 
could  say  honestly  that  her  silence  had  been  involuntary,  in- 
stinctive, she  fancied  whimsically,  like  the  reticence  as  to 
emotions  that  one  keeps  in  the  hurly-burly  of  a  railway  sta- 
tion. With  tickets  to  be  bought  and  trunks  to  be  checked 
and  time-tables  to  be  consulted,  it  is  absurd  to  try  to  com- 
municate to  a  busy  and  preoccupied  companion  inexplicable 
qualms  of  soul-sickness.  Any  sensible  woman  —  and  Lydia, 
like  most  American  women,  had  been  trained  by  precept  and 
example  to  desire  above  all  things  to  be  sensible  and  not 
emotionally  troublesome  to  the  men  of  her  family  —  any  sen- 
sible woman  kept  her  thoughts  to  herself  till  the  time  came 
when  she  could  talk  them  over  without  interfering  with  the 
business  on  hand. 

As  she  lay  on  the  sofa  and  watched  Paul's  face  sharpen 
in  his  concentration,  it  occurred  to  her  that  the  point  of 
the  whole  matter  was  that  for  her  and  Paul  the  suitable 
and  leisurely  time  for  mutual  discussion  had  never  come. 
That  was  all !  That  was  the  whole  trouble !  It  was  not 
any  inherent  lack  of  common  feeling  between  them.  Sim- 


A  Hint  from  Childhood  283 

ply,  there  was  always  business  on  hand  with  which  she 
must  not  interfere. 

Paul  lifted  his  head,  his  eyes  half  closed  in  a  narrowed, 
speculative  gaze  upon  some  knotty  point  in  his  calculation. 
This  long,  sideways  look  happened  to  fall  upon  Lydia,  and 
she  turned  cold  before  the  profound  unconsciousness  of  her 
existence  in  those  eyes  apparently  fixed  so  piercingly  upon 
her.  She  had  a  quick  fancy  that  the  blank  wall  of  abstrac- 
tion at  which  that  vacant  stare  was  directed  really  and 
palpably  separated  her  husband  from  her. 

For  a  moment  she  wondered  if  she  were  growing  like 
the  women  she  had  heard  her  father  so  unsparingly  con- 
demn—  silly,  childish,  egotistic  women  who  could  not  bear 
to  have  their  husbands  think  of  anything  but  themselves, 
who  were  jealous  of  the  very  business  which  earned  them 
and  their  children  a  living.  She  acquitted  herself  of  this 
charge  proudly.  She  did  not  want  all  of  Paul's  time;  she 
wanted  only  some  of  it.  And  then,  it  was  not  to  have  him 
thinking  of  her,  but  with  her  about  the  common  problems 
of  their  life;  it  was  to  think  with  him  about  the  problems 
of  his  life ;  it  was  to  have  him  help  her  by  his  sound, 
well-balanced,  well-trained  mind,  which,  so  everyone  said, 
worked  such  miracles  in  business;  to  have  him  help  her 
through  the  thicket  of  confusion  into  which  she  was  plunged 
by  her  inability  to  accept  the  plainly-marked  road  over 
which  all  of  her  world  was  pressing  forward.  Perhaps  it 
was  all  right,  she  thought,  the  way  Endbury  people  "  did." 
She  asked  nothing  better  than  to  be  convinced  that  it  was ; 
she  longed  for  a  satisfying  answer.  But  Paul  did  not  even 
know  she  had  doubts!  How  could  he,  she  asked  herself, 
exonerating  him  from  blame.  He  was  away  so  many  hours 
of  the  day  and  days  of  the  year ;  and  when  he  came  home 
he  was  so  tired ! 

It  was  characteristic  of  her  temper  that  she  had  learned 
quickly  and  without  bitterness  the  lesson  every  wife  must 
learn,  that  neither  tenderness  nor  delicate  perceptions  of 
shades  of  feeling  can  be  extorted  from  a  very  tired  or  very 
preoccupied  man.  Masculine  fatigue  brings  with  it  a 


284  The  Squirrel-Cage 

healthy  bluntness  as  to  what  is  being  expected  in  the  way  of 
emotional  responsiveness,  and  men  will  not  allow  their  sense 
of  duty  to  spur  their  jaded  affection  to  the  point  of  exhaus- 
tion. Lydia  noted  this,  felt  that  she  could  not  with  any 
show  of  reason  resent  it,  since  it  showed  a  state  of  things  as 
hard  for  Paul  as  for  her ;  but  she  could  not  blind  herself  to 
the  fact  that  the  inevitable  result  was  Paul's  complete  ig- 
norance of  her  real  life.  She  felt  herself  to  be  so  different 
from  the  girl  he  had  married  as  scarcely  to  be  recognizable, 
and  yet  there  was  no  way  by  which  he  could  have  caught 
even  a  glimpse  of  the  changes  that  had  made  her  so.  The 
short  periods  they  spent  with  each  other  were  necessarily 
more  than  filled  by  consultations  about  matters  of  house- 
hold administration  and  plans  for  their  social  life,  and  about 
the  way  to  spend  the  money  that  Paul  earned.  Paul  was 
a  very  good-natured  and  consciously  indulgent  husband,  but 
Lydia  seldom  emerged  from  an  hour's  conversation  with 
him  without  an  uneasy  feeling  that  she  was  not  by  any  means 
getting  out  of  the  money  he  furnished  her  the  largest  amount 
possible  of  what  he  wanted ;  and  this  sensation  was  scarcely 
conducive  to  an  expression  of  what  was,  after  all,  on  her 
part  nothing  but  a  vague  aspiration  toward  an  ideal  —  an 
aspiration  that  came  to  her  clearly  only  at  times  of  great 
tranquillity  and  peace,  when  her  mind  was  quite  at  rest. 

She  was  going  around  and  around  the  treadmill  of  her 
familiar  perplexities  when  a  trifling  incident,  so  small,  so  de- 
pendent on  its  framing  of  situation,  accent,  expression  and 
gesture  as  scarcely  to  be  recordable,  gave  her  a  sudden 
glimpse  of  quite  another  side  to  the  matter.  She  was 
shocked  into  realizing  that  just  as  their  way  of  life  hid 
from  Paul  what  was  going  on  in  her  mind,  so  he  also,  in  all 
probability,  was  rapidly  changing  without  her  knowledge. 

Paul  finished  his  figuring,  pushed  the  papers  to  one  side 
with  a  sigh  of  fatigue,  and  turned  his  eyes  thoughtfully  on 
his  wife.  "  That's  very  good  news  of  yours,  Lydia  dear, 
about  the  expected  son  and  heir.  But  it's  rather  a  pity  ft 
didn't  come  last  winter,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  How  so?  "  she  asked. 


A  Hint  from  Childhood  285 

"  Why,  you  had  to  be  out  of  things  on  account  of  being 
in  mourning,  anyhow.  If  this  had  happened  the  year  your 
father  died,  you  could  have  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone, 
don't  you  see  ?  " 

Lydia's  perception  of  a  thousand  reasonable  explanations 
and  excuses  for  this  speech  was  so  quick  that  it  was  upon 
her  almost  before  she  was  aware  of  her  resentment.  She 
hurried  to  shut  the  door  on  a  blighting  new  vision  of  her 
husband,  by  telling  herself  loudly  that  it  was  to  be  expected 
Paul  should  feel  so ;  but,  rapid  as  her  loyal,  wifely  move- 
ment had  been,  she  had  felt  a  gust  of  hot  revulsion  against 
something  in  her  husband  which  her  affection  for  him  for- 
bade her  to  name. 

She  could  not  put  out  of  her  mind,  his  look,  his  accent,  his 
air  of  taking  for  granted  that  the  speech  was  a  natural  one. 
The  knowledge  that  Marietta  would  be  too  bewildered  by 
her  dwelling  on  the  incident  even  to  laugh  at  her,  did  not 
avail  to  free  her  of  the  heavy  doubts  that  filled  her.  Was 
she  mistaken  in  feeling  that  it  indicated  an  alarming  in- 
crease of  materialism  in  Paul  ?  She  was  really  too  fanciful, 
she  told  herself  many  times  a  day,  surprised  to  find  herself 
going  over  it  again.  Was  it  a  mere  chance  remark  —  a 
little  stone  in  the  garden  path  —  or  was  it  the  first  visible 
outcropping  of  a  stratum  of  unconquerable  granite  which 
grimly  underlay  all  the  flower  beds  of  his  good  riature  ? 

The  final  impression  on  her  mind  was  of  a  new  motive 
for  coming  to  a  better,  closer  understanding  with  Paul  about 
the  fundamentals  of  their  life.  It  had  not  occurred  to  her 
before,  in  spite  of  all  her  struggles  "  to  be  good,"  as  she  put 
it  to  herself  with  her  childlike  naivete,  that  Paul  might  be 
needing  her  as  much  as  she  needed  him!  Spurred  on  by 
this  new  reason  for  breaking  through  the  impalpable  wall 
that  separated  their  inner  lives,  she  resolved  that  she  would 
no  longer  let  herself  be  dominated  by  the  inconsequent 
multiplicity  of  the  trifling  incidents  that  filled  their  days. 

If  she  could  only  get  close  to  Paul  she  was  sure  that  all. 
would  be  well.  She  made  herself  hope,  with  a  brave  belit- 
tling of  the  tangle  that  baffled  her,  that  perhaps  just  one 


286  The  Squirrel-Cage 

long,  serious  talk  with  Paul  would  be  all  that  was  needed. 
If  she  could  just  make  Paul  see  what  she  saw,  he  could  tell 
her  how  to  set  to  work  to  remedy  things.  Paul  was  so 
clever.  Paul  was  always  so  kind  —  when  he  saw ! 

She  began  watching  for  a  favorable  opportunity  for  this 
long,  serious  talk,  and  as  day  after  day  fled  past  with  only 
a  glimpse  of  Paul  desperately  in  a  hurry  in  the  morning  and 
desperately  tired  at  night,  she  was  aware  that  her  idea  of 
the  shape  their  life  was  taking  had  not  exaggerated  the  ex- 
tent of  the  broad  flood  of  trivialities  that  separated  them. 
Although  the  light  laugh  of  her  girlhood  was  rarer  than 
before  her  marriage,  life  had  not  proved  it  to  be  the  result 
of  mere  animal  spirits.  She  still  saw  a  great  deal  to  laugh 
at,  though  sometimes  it  was  tremulous  laughter,  carrying 
her  to  the  edge  of  tears.  And  she  often  laughed  to  herself 
during  these  days  at  the  absurd  incongruity  of  what  her 
heart  was  swelling  to  utter  and  the  occasions  on  which  she 
would  have  to  speak. 

'Stashie  was  away,  tending  her  aunt  who  was  ill,  away 
for  an  indefinite  period,  for  Patsy's  steady  wages  quite  suf- 
ficed to  keep  his  cousin  at  home  to  care  for  his  grand- 
mother. Lydia  sometimes  feared  the  satisfaction  she  took 
in  Patsy's  exemplary  career  was  tinctured  with  vainglory 
for  her  own  share  in  it,  but,  if  so,  she  was  punished  for  it 
now,  since  it  was  his  very  prosperity  that  took  away  from 
her  the  only  steady  domestic  help  she  had  ever  been  able 
to  keep.  She  had  now  only  a  cook,  a  slatternly  negress, 
with  a  gift  for  frying  chicken  and  making  beaten  biscuit, 
and  a  total  incapacity  to  conceive  of  any  other  activity  as 
possible  for  her.  Lydia  had  telephoned  to  the  two  em- 
ployment agencies  in  Endbury  and  had  been  informed,  by  no 
means  for  the  first  time,  that  the  supply  of  girls  willing  to 
work  in  the  suburbs  had  entirely  given  out.  For  the  time 
being  there  was  simply  not  one  to  be  had,  so  for  the  next 
few  days  Lydia,  as  well  as  Paul,  was  more  than  usually  oc- 
cupied ;  but  her  fixed  intention  to  "  talk  things  over  with 
him "  was  not  shaken.  And  yet  —  day  after  day  went 
by  with  the  routine  unvaried  —  there  was  no  time  in  the 


A  Hint  from  Childhood  287 

morning;  in  the  evening  Paul  was  too  tired,  and  on  Sun- 
days there  was  always  "  Company,"  it  being  practically  their 
only  time  for  daylight  entertainment.  Often  Paul  brought 
a  business  associate  home  for  dinner;  his  family  or  hers 
came  in;  there  were  always  callers  in  the  afternoon;  and 
they  were  usually  invited  out  to  supper  or  had  guests  them- 
selves. It  was  the  busiest  day  of  the  week. 

Ever  since  her  father's  death  she  had  been  reviving  in  her 
mind,  shocked  to  find  them  so  few,  her  positive,  personal 
recollections  of  him,  and  one  of  them  now  came  back  to  her 
with  a  symbolic  meaning.  It  had  been  a  not  uncommon  oc- 
currence in  her  childhood  —  a  school  picnic  in  the  Black 
Rock  woods ;  but  this  one  stood  out  from  all  the  others  be- 
cause, by  what  freak  of  chance  she  never  knew,  her  father 
had  gone  with  her  instead  of  her  mother.  How  proud  she 
had  been  to  have  him  there!  How  eagerly  she  had  done 
the  honors  of  the  "  entertainment "  !  How  anxiously  she 
had  hoped  that  he  would  be  pleased  with  the  recitations,  the 
songs,  the  May-day  dance! 

One  of  the  events  of  the  day  was  to  be  the  recitation  of 
a  fairy  poem  by  a  boy  in  one  of  the  upper  grades.  He  was 
to  step  out  of  the  bushes  in  the  character  of  a  Brownie. 
The  child  had  but  just  thrust  his  head  through  the  leaves 
and  begun,  "  I  come  to  tell  ye  of  a  world  ye  mortals  wot 
not  of,"  when  a  terrific  clap  of  thunder  overhead,  followed 
by  lightning,  and  rain  in  torrents,  broke  up  the  picnic  and 
sent  everyone  flying  for  shelter  to  a  near-by  barn.  Lydia 
had  been  very  much  afraid  of  thunderstorms,  and  she  could 
still  remember  how,  through  all  her  confusion  and  terror, 
she  had  admired  the  fixity  of  purpose  of  the  little  Brownie, 
piteous  in  his  drenched  fairy  costume,  gasping  out,  as  they 
ran  along :  "  I  come  to  tell  ye  —  I  come  to  tell  ye,  mortals  — " 
to  his  scurrying  audience. 

When  they  reached  the  barn  and  were  huddled  in  the  hay, 
wet  and  forlorn,  and  deafened  by  the  peals  of  thunder,  the 
determined  little  boy  had  stood  up  on  a  farm  wagon  on  the 
barn  floor,  and  the  instant  the  storm  abated  began  again 
with  his  insistent  tidings  of  a  world  they  wot  not  of.  With 


288  The  Squirrel-Cage 

her  father's  death  fresh  in  her  mind,  Lydia  could  not  without 
a  throb  of  pain  recall  his  rare  outburst  of  hearty  laughter  at 
the  child's  perseverance.  "  I  bet  on  that  kid !  "  he  had  cried 
out,  applauding  vigorously  at  the  end.  "  Who  is  he  ?  " 

"  Paul  Hollister,"  she  had  told  him,  proud  to  know  the 
bigger  children.  "  He's  a  very  especial  friend  of  mine." 

"  Well,  you  can  bet  he'll  get  on,"  her  father  had  assured 
her. 

The  opening  of  the  Brownie's  speech  had  come  to  be  one 
of  the  humorous  catchwords  of  the  Emery  household,  to 
express  firmness  of  purpose,  and  it  was  now  with  a  mix- 
ture of  laughter  and  tears  that  Lydia  recalled  the  scene  — 
the  dusky  interior  of  the  barn,  the  sweet,  strong  scent  of 
the  hay,  the  absurd  little  figure  grimacing  and  squeaking  on 
the  farm  wagon,  and  her  big,  little-known,  all-powerful 
father,  one  strong  arm  around  her,  protecting  her  from  all 
she  feared,  as  nothing  in  the  world  could  protect  her  now. 

She  was  grown  up  now,  and  must  learn  how  to  protect 
her  own  children  against  dangers  less  obvious  than  thunder- 
storms. It  was  her  turn  now  to  insist  on  making  herself 
heard  above  uproar  and  confusion.  Her  little  Brownie 
playmate  shamed  her  into  action.  She  would  not  wait  for 
a  pause  in  the  clatter  of  small  events  about  Paul  and  her- 
self ;  she  would  raise  her  voice  and  shout  to  him,  if  neces- 
sary, overcoming  the  shy  reluctance  of  the  spirit  to  speak 
aloud  of  its  life. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

LYDIA  REACHES  HER  GOAL  AND  HAS  HER 
TALK  WITH  HER  HUSBAND 

PAUL  was  still  asleep  when  Lydia  opened  her  eyes  one 
jnorning  and  said  to  herself  with  a  little  laugh,  but  quite 
resolutely :  "  I  come  to  tell  ye  of  a  world  ye  mortals  wot 
not  of."" 

As  she  dressed  noiselessly,  she  fortified  herself  with  the 
thought  that  she  had,  in  her  nervousness,  greatly  overesti- 
mated the  seriousness  of  her  undertaking.  There  was  noth- 
ing so  formidable  in  what  she  meant  to  do,  after  all.  She 
only  wished  to  talk  reasonably  with  her  husband  about  how 
to  avoid  having  their  life  degenerate  into  a  mere  campaign 
for  material  advancement.  She  did  not  use  this  phrase  in 
her  thoughts  about  the  matter.  She  thought  more  deeply, 
and  perhaps  more  clearly,  than  during  her  confused  girl- 
hood, but  she  had  no  learned  or  dignified  expressions  for 
the  new  ideas  dawning  in  her.  As  she  coiled  her  dark  hair 
above  her  face,  rather  pale  these  days,  like  a  white  flower 
instead  of  the  glowing  rose  it  had  been,  she  said  to  herself, 
like  a  child :  "  Now,  I  mustn't  get  excited.  I  must  remem- 
ber that  all  I  want  is  a  chance  for  all  of  us,  Paul  and  the 
children  and  me,  to  grow  up  as  good  as  we  can,  and  loving 
one  another  the  most  for  the  nicest  things  in  us  and  not  be- 
cause we're  handy  stepping-stones  to  help  one  another  get 
on.  And  we  can't  do  that  if  we  don't  really  put  our  minds 
to  it  and  make  that  the  thing  we're  trying  hardest  to  do. 
The  other  things  —  the  parties  and  making  money  and  dress- 
ing better  than  we  can  really  afford  to  —  they're  only  all 
right  if  they  don't  get  to  seeming  the  things  to  look  out  for 
first.  We  must  find  out  how  to  keep  them  second." 

289 


290  The  Squirrel-Cage 

A  golden  shaft  of  winter  sunshine  fell  on  Paul's  face. 
He  opened  his  eyes  and  yawned,  smiling  good-naturedly  at 
his  wife.  Lydia  summoned  her  courage  and  fairly  ran 
to  the  bed,  sitting  down  by  him  and  taking  his  strong 
hand  in  hers. 

"  Oh,  you  india-rubber  ball !  "  he  cried  in  humorous  de- 
pair  at  her.  "  Don't  you  know  a  woman  with  your 
expectations  oughtn't  to  go  hurling  herself  around  that 
way?" 

"  I  know  —  I'm  too  eager  always,"  she  apologized. 
"  But,  Paul,  I've  been  waiting  for  a  nice  quiet  time  to  have 
a  long  talk  with  you  about  something  that's  troubling  me, 
and  I  just  decided  I  wouldn't  wait  another  minute." 

Paul  patted  her  cheek.  He  was  feeling  very  much  re- 
freshed by  his  night's  sleep.  He  smiled  at  his  young  wife 
again.  "  Why,  fire  away,  Lydia  dear.  I'm  no  ogre.  You 
don't  have  to  wait  till  I'm  in  a  good  temper,  do  you? 
What  is  it  ?  More  money  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no ! "  She  repudiated  the  idea  so  hotly  that 
he  laughed,  "  Well,  you  can't  scare  me  with  anything  else. 
What's  up?" 

Lydia  hesitated,  distracted,  now  that  her  chance  had 
come,  with  the  desire  to  speak  clearly.  "  Paul  dear,  it's 
very  serious,  and  I  want  you  to  take  it  seriously.  It  may 
take  a  great  effort  to  change  things,  too.  I'm  very  un- 
happy about  the  way  we  are — " 

A  wail  from  Ariadne's  room  gave  warning  that  the  child 
had  wakened,  as  she  not  infrequently  did,  terrified  by  a 
bad  dream.  Lydia  fled  in  to  comfort  her,  and  later,  when 
she  came  back,  leading  the  droll  little  figure  in  its  pink  sleep- 
ing-drawers, Paul  was  dressing  with  his  usual  careful  haste. 
He  stopped  an  instant  to  laugh  at  Ariadne's  face  of  de- 
termined woe  and  tossed  her  up  until  an  unwilling  smile 
broke  through  her  pouting  gloom.  Then  he  turned  to  Lydia, 
as  to  another  child,  and  rubbed  his  cheek  on  hers  with  a 
boyish  gesture.  "  Now,  you  other  little  forlornity,  what's 
the  matter  with  you  ?  " 

Lydia  warmed,  as  always,  at  the  tenderness  of  his  tone, 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  291 

though  she  noticed  with  an  inward  laugh  that-  he  con- 
tinued buttoning  his  vest  as  he  caressed  her  and  that  his 
eyes  wandered  to  the  clock  with  a  wary  alertness.  "  Per- 
haps you'd  better  wait  and  tell  me  at  the  table,"  he  went 
on  briskly.  "  I'm  all  ready  to  go  down."  He  pulled  his 
coat  on  with  his  astonishing  quickness,  and  ran  downstairs. 

Lydia  put  Ariadne  into  her  own  bed,  telling  the  docile 
little  thing  to  stay  there  till  Mother  came  back  for  her, 
and  followed  Paul,  huddling  together  the  remnants  of  her 
resolution  which  looked  very  wan  in  the  morning  light. 
Breakfast  was  not  ready;  the  table  was  not  even  set,  and 
when  she  went  out  into  the  kitchen  she  was  met  by  a 
heavy-eyed  cook,  moving  futilely  about  among  dirty  pots 
and  pans  and  murmuring  something  about  a  headache. 
Lydia  could  not  stop  then  to  investigate  further,  but,  hur- 
rying about,  managed  to  get  a  breakfast  ready  for  Paul 
before  his  first  interest  in  the  morning  paper  had  evaporated 
enough  to  make  him  impatient  of  the  delay. 

He  fell  to  with  a  hearty  appetite  as  soon  as  the  food 
was  set  before  him,  not  noticing  for  several  moments  that 
Lydia's  breakfast  was  not  yet  ready.  When  he  did  so, 
he  spoke  with  a  solicitous  sharpness :  "  Lydia,  you  need  a 
guardian!  You  ought  to  eat  as  a  matter  of  duty!  I  bet 
half  your  queer  notions  come  from  your  just  pecking  around 
at  any  old  thing  when  I'm  not  here  to  keep  track  of  you." 

He  poured  out  another  cup  of  coffee  for  himself  as  he 
spoke. 

"  Yes,  dear ;  I  know,  I  do.  I  will,"  Lydia  assured  him, 
with  her  quick  acquiescence  to  his  wishes.  "  But  this  morn- 
ing Mary  is  sick,  or  something,  and  I  got  yours  first." 

Paul  spoke  briefly,  with  his  mouth  full  of  toast :  "  If 
you  were  more  regular  in  the  way  you  run  the  house,  and 
insisted  on  never  varying  the  — " 

"  But  I  was  afraid  you  would  be  late,"  said  Lydia.  It 
was  the  daily  terror  of  her  life. 

"  I  am  late  now,"  he  told  her,  with  his  good-humored 
insistence  on  facts.  "I've  missed  the  7:40,  and  I've  just 
time  to  catch  the  next  one  if  I  hurry.  Do  you  happen 


292  The  Squirrel-Cage 

to  know,  dear,  where  I  put  that  catalogue  from  Elberstrom 
and  Company?  The  big  red  book  with  the  picture  of  a 
dynamo  on  the  cover.  I  was  looking  over  it  last  night, 
and  Heaven  knows  where  I  may  have  dropped  it." 

The  opinion  as  to  the  proper  answer  to  a  speech  like 
this  was  one  of  the  sharply  marked  lines  of  divergence  be- 
tween Madeleine  Lowder  and  her  brother's  wife.  "  Soak 
him  one  when  you  get  a  chance,  Lydia,"  she  was  wont  to 
urge  facetiously,  and  her  advice  in  the  present  case  would 
unhesitatingly  have  been  to  answer  as  acrimoniously  as 
possible  that  if  he  were  more  regular  in  the  way  he  handled 
such  things  his  wife  would  have  to  spend  less  time  ransack- 
ing the  house  looking  for  them.  But  in  spite  of  such  prac- 
tical and  experienced  counsel,  Lydia  was  scarcely  conscious 
of  refraining  from  the  entirely  justifiable  and  entirely 
futile  customary  recriminations,  and  she  was  as  unaware 
as  Paul  of  the  vast  amount  of  embittering  domestic  fric- 
tion which  was  spared  them  by  her  silence.  She  had  some 
great  natural  advantages  for  the  task  of  creating  a  better 
domestic  life  at  which  she  was  now  so  eagerly  setting  her- 
self, and  one  of  them  was  this  incapacity  to  resent  petty 
injustices  done  to  herself.  She  was  handicapped  in  any 
effort  by  her  utter  lack  of  intellectual  training  and  by  a 
natural  tendency  to  mental  confusion,  but  her  lack  of 
small  vanities  not  only  spared  her  untold  suffering,  but 
added  much  to  her  singleness  of  aim. 

She  now  went  about  searching  for  the  catalogue,  finally 
finding  it  in  the  library  under  the  couch.  When  she  came 
back  to  the  dining-room  she  saw  Paul  standing  up  by  the 
table,  wiping  his  mouth.  Evidently  he  was  ready  to  start. 
How  absurd  she  had  been  to  think  of  talking  seriously  to 
him  in  the  morning! 

"  Mary  brought  your  breakfast  in,"  he  said  nodding  to- 
ward an  untidy  tray.  "  I  hate  to  seem  to  be  finding  fault 
all  the  time,  but  really  her  breath  was  enough  to  set  the 
house  on  fire!  Can't  you  keep  her  down  to  moderate 
drinking?  " 

"  I'll  try,"  said  Lydia. 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  293 

Paul  took  the  catalogue  from  her  hand  and  reached  for 
his  hat.  They  were  in  the  hall  now.  "  Good-by,  Honey," 
he  said,  kissing  her  hastily  and  darting  out  of  the  house. 

Lydia  had  but  just  turned  back  to  the  dining-room  when 
he  opened  the  door  and  came  in  again,  bringing  a  gust  of 
fresh  winter  air  with  him.  "  Say,  dear,  you  forgot  about 
something  you  wanted  to  tell  me  about.  I've  got  eight 
minutes  before  the  trolley,  so  now's  your  chance.  What  is 
it  ?  Something  about  the  plumbing  ?  " 

In  the  dusky  hall  Lydia  faced  him  for  a  moment  in 
silence,  with  so  singular  an  expression  on  her  face  that  he 
looked  apprehensive  of  some  sort  of  scene.  Then  she 
broke  out  into  breathless,  quavering  laughter,  whose  un- 
certainty did  not  prevent  Paul  from  great  relief  at  her  ap- 
parent change  of  mood.  "  Never  mind,"  she  said,  leaning 
against  the  newel-post,  "  I'll  tell  you  —  I'll  tell  you  some 
other  time." 

He  kissed  her  again,  and  she  felt  that  it  was  with  a 
greater  tenderness  now  that  he  no  longer  feared  a  pos- 
sibly disagreeable  communication  from  her. 

After  he  had  gone,  she  thought  loyally,  putting  things 
in  the  order  of  importance  she  had  been  taught  all  her  life, 
"  Well,  it  is  hard  for  him  to  have  perplexities  at  home 
and  not  to  be  able  to  give  the  freshest  and  best  of  himself 
to  business."  It  was  not  until  later,  as  she  was  dressing 
Ariadne,  that  she  swung  slowly  back  to  her  new  doubt  of 
that  view  of  the  problem. 

Ariadne  was  in  one  of  her  most  talkative  moods,  and  was 
describing  at  great  length  the  dream  that  had  frightened 
her  so.  There  was  a  hen  with  six  little  chickens,  she  told 
her  mother,  and  one  of  them  was  as  big  —  as  big  — 

"  Yes,  dear ;  and  what  did  the  big  little  chicken  do  ?  " 
Lydia  laced  up  the  little  shoes,  on  her  knees  before  the 
small  figure,  her  mind  whirling.  "  That  was  just  the 
trouble,  she  couldn't  make  it  seem  right  any  more,  that 
Paul's  best  and  freshest  should  all  go  to  making  money 
and  none  to  a  consideration  of  why  he  wished  to  make  it." 

"Yes,  Ariadne,  and  it  flew  over  the  house,  and  then?" 


294  The  Squirrel-Cage 

She  began  buttoning  the  child's  dress,  and  lost  herself 
in  ecstasy  over  the  wisps  of  soft  curls  at  the  back  of  the 
rosy  neck.  She  dropped  a  sudden  kiss  on  the  spot,  in  the 
midst  of  Ariadne's  narrative,  and  the  child  squealed  in  de- 
lighted surprise.  Lydia  was  carried  away  by  one  of  her 
own  childlike  impulses  of  gayety,  and  burrowed  bear-like, 
growling  savagely,  in  the  soft  flesh.  Ariadne  doubled  up, 
shrieking  with  laughter,  the  irresistible  laughter  of  child- 
hood. Lydia  laughed  in  response,  and  the  two  were  off 
for  one  of  their  rollicking  frolics.  They  were  like  a  couple 
of  kittens  together.  Finally,  "  Come,  dear ;  we  must  get  our 
breakfasts,"  said  Lydia,  leading  along  the  little  girl,  still 
flushed  and  smiling  from  her  play. 

Her  passion  for  the  child  grew  with  Ariadne's  growth, 
and  there  were  times  when  she  was  tempted  to  agree  in  the 
unspoken  axiom  of  those  about  her,  that  all  she  needed  was 
enough  children  to  fill  her  heart  and  hands  too  full  for 
thought ;  but  sometimes  at  night,  when  Paul  was  away  and 
she  had  the  little  crib  moved  close  to  her  bed,  very  dif- 
ferent ideas  came  to  her  in  the  silent  hours  when  she  lay 
listening  to  the  child's  quick,  regular  breathing.  At  such 
times,  when  her  mind  grew  very  clear  in  the  long  pause  be- 
tween the  hurry  of  one  day  and  the  next,  she  had  rather  a 
sort  of  horror  in  bringing  any  more  lives  into  a  world 
which  she  could  do  so  little  to  make  ready  for  them. 
Ariadne  was  here,  and,  oh!  She  must  do  something  to 
make  it  better  for  her!  Her  desire  that  Ariadne  should 
find  it  easier  than  she  to  know  how  to  live  well,  rose  to  a 
fervor  that  was  a  prayer  emanating  from  all  her  being. 
Perhaps  she  was  not  clever  or  strong  enough  to  know 
how  to  make  her  own  life  and  Paul's  anything  but  a  dreary 
struggle  to  get  ahead  of  other  people,  but  somehow  — 
somehow,  Ariadne  must  have  a  better  chance. 

Something  of  all  this  came  to  her  mind  in  the  reaction 
from  her  frolic,  as  she  established  the  child  in  her  high- 
chair  and  sat  down  to  her  own  cold  breakfast ;  but  she  soon 
fell,  instead,  to  pondering  the  question  of  Mary  in  the 
kitchen.  She  had  not  now  that  terror  of  a  violent  scene 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  295 

which  had  embittered  the  first  year  of  her  housekeeping, 
but  she  felt  a  qualm  of  revulsion  from  the  dirty  negress 
who,  as  she  entered  the  kitchen,  turned  to  face  her  with 
insolent  eyes.  It  seemed  a  plague-spot  in  her  life  that  in 
the  center  of  her  home,  otherwise  so  carefully  guarded, 
there  should  be  this  presence,  come  from  she  shuddered  to 
think  what  evil  haunts  of  that  part  of  Endbury  known  as 
the  "  Black  Hole."  She  thought,  as  so  many  women  have 
thought,  that  there  must  be  something  wrong  in  a  system 
that  made  her  husband  spend  all  his  strength  laboring  to 
make  money  so  much  of  which  was  paid,  in  one  form  or 
another,  to  this  black  incubus.  She  thought,  as  so  many 
other  women  have  thought,  that  there  must  be  something 
wrong  with  a  system  of  life  that  meant  that,  with  rare  ex- 
ceptions, such  help  was  all  that  could  be  coaxed  into  doing 
housework;  but  Lydia,  unlike  the  other  women  she  knew, 
did  not  —  could  not  —  stop  at  the  realization  that  something 
was  wrong.  Some  irresistible  impulse  moved  her  to  try  at 
least  to  set  it  right. 

On  this  occasion,  however,  as  she  faced  the  concrete 
result  of  the  system,  she  was  too  languid,  and  felt  too 
acutely  the  need  for  sparing  her  strength,  to  do  more  than 
tell  her  cook  briefly  that  if  she  did  not  stop  drinking  she 
would  be  dismissed.  Mary  made  no  reply,  looking  down  at 
her  torn  apron,  her  face  heavy  and  sullen.  She  prepared 
some  sort  of  luncheon,  however,  and  by  night  had  recovered 
enough  so  that  with  Lydia's  help  the  dinner  was  eatable. 

Paul  was  late  to  dinner,  and  when  he  sat  down  heavily  at 
the  table  Lydia's  heart  failed  her  at  the  sight  of  his  face, 
fairly  haggard  with  fatigue.  She  kept  Ariadne  quiet,  the 
child  having  already  learned  that  when  Daddy  came  home 
from  the  city  there  must  be  no  more  noisy  play;  and  she 
served  Paul  with  a  quickness  that  outstripped  words.  She 
longed  unspeakably  to  put  on  one  side  forever  all  her  vex- 
ing questions  and  simply  to  cherish  and  care  for  her  hus- 
band physically.  He  had  so  much  to  burden  him  already 
—  all  he  could  carry.  But  she  had  been  so  long  bringing 
herself  to  the  point  of  resolution  in  the  matter,  she  had  so 


296  The  Squirrel-Cage 

firmly  convinced  herself  that  her  duty  lay  along  that  dark 
and  obscure  path,  that  she  clung  to  her  purpose. 

After  dinner,  when  she  came  downstairs  from  putting 
Ariadne  to  bed,  she  found  him  already  bent  over  the  writ- 
ing-table, covering  a  sheet  of  paper  with  figures.  "  You 
remember,  Paul,  I  have  something  to  talk  over  with  you," 
she  began,  her  mouth  twitching  in  a  nervous  smile. 

He  pushed  the  papers  aside,  and  looked  up  at  her  with 
a  weary  tenderness.  "  Oh,  yes ;  I  do  remember.  We  might 
as  well  have  it  over  now,  I  suppose.  Wait  a  minute, 
though."  He  went  to  the  couch,  piled  the  pillows  at  one 
end,  and  lay  down,  his  hands  clasped  under  his  head.  "  I 
might  as  well  rest  myself  while  we  talk,  mightn't  I  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes,  poor  dear ! "  cried  Lydia  remorsefully. 
"  I  wish  I  didn't  have  to  bother  you !  " 

"  I  wish  so,  too,"  he  said  whimsically.  "  Sure  it's  noth- 
ing you  can't  settle  yourself  ? "  He  closed  his  eyes  and 
yawned. 

"  I  don't  want  to  settle  it  myself ! "  cried  Lydia  with  a 
rush,  seeing  an  opening  ready-made.  "  That's  the  point. 
I  want  you  to  be  in  it!  I  want  you  to  help  me!  Paul, 
I'm  sure  there's  something  the  matter  with  the  way  we  live 
—  I  don't  like  it !  I  don't  see  that  it  helps  us  a  bit  — 
or  anyone  else  —  you're  just  killing  yourself  to  make  money 
that  goes  to  get  us  things  we  don't  need  nearly  as  much 
as  we  need  more  of  each  other!  We're  not  getting  a  bit 
nearer  to  each  other  —  actually  further  away,  for  we're  both 
getting  different  from  what  we  were  without  the  other's 
knowing  how!  And  we're  not  getting  nicer  —  and  what's 
the  use  of  living  if  we  don't  do  that?  We're  just  getting 
more  and  more  set  on  scrambling  along  ahead  of  other 
people.  And  we're  not  even  having  a  good  time  out  of 
it !  And  here  is  Ariadne  —  and  another  one  coming  — 
and  we've  nothing  to  give  them  but  just  this  —  this  — 
this- 

She  had  poured  out  her  accumulated,  pent-up  convictions 
with  passion,  feeling  an  immense  relief  that  she  had  at  last 
expressed  herself  —  that  at  last  she  had  made  a  breach  in 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  297 

the  wall  that  separated  her  from  Paul.  At  the  end,  as  she 
hesitated  for  a  phrase  to  sum  up  her  indictment  of  their 
life,  her  eyes  fell  on  Paul's  face.  Its  expression  turned 
her  cold.  She  stopped  short.  He  did  not  open  his  eyes, 
and  the  ensuing  silence  was  filled  with  his  regular,  heavy 
breathing.  He  had  fallen  asleep. 

Lydia  folded  her  hands  in  her  lap  and  sat  looking  at 
him  intently.  In  the  tumult  of  her  emotions  there  was 
neither  bitterness  nor  resentment.  But  a  cloud  had  passed 
between  her  and  the  sun.  She  sat  there  a  long  time,  her 
face  very  pale  and  grave.  After  a  time  she  laid  her  hand 
on  her  husband's  shoulder.  She  felt  an  intolerable  need  to 
feel  him  at  least  physically  near. 

The  telephone  bell  rang  distinctly  in  the  hall.  Paul 
bounded  to  his  feet,  wide  awake. 

"  I  bet  that's  the  Washburn  superintendent ! "  he  cried. 
"  He  said  they  might  call  me  up  here  if  they  came  to  a 
decision."  He  had  apparently  forgotten  Lydia's  presence, 
or  else  the  fact  that  she  knew  nothing  of  his  affairs.  He 
disappeared  into  the  hall,  his  long,  springy,  active  step 
resounding  quickly  as  he  hurried  to  the  instrument.  Lydia 
heard  his  voice,  decisive,  masterful,  quiet,  evidently  dictat- 
ing terms  of  some  bargain  that  had  been  hanging  in  the 
balance.  When  he  came  back,  his  head  was  up,  like  a 
conqueror's.  "  I've  got  their  contract ! "  he  told  her,  and 
then,  snatching  her  up,  he  whirled  her  about,  shouting 
out  a  "  yip !  yip !  yip !  "  of  triumph. 

In  spite  of  herself  Lydia's  chin  began  to  tremble.  She 
felt  a  stinging  in  her  eyes.  Paul  saw  these  signs  of  emo- 
tion and  was  conscience-stricken.  "  Oh,  I'm  a  black-hearted 
monster !  "  he  cried,  in  burlesque  contrition.  "  I  must  have 
dropped  off  just  as  you  began  your  spiel.  But,  Lydia, 
if  you'd  taken  that  West  Virginia  trip,  you'd  go  to  sleep 
if  the  Angel  Gabriel  were  blowing  his  horn!  I  was  gone 
three  days,  you  know,  and,  honest,  I  didn't  have  three 
hours'  consecutive  sleep!  Don't  be  too  mad  at  me.  Start 
over  again.  I'll  listen  to  every  word,  honest  to  gracious  I 
will.  I  feel  as  waked  up  as  a  fighting  cock,  anyhow,  by 


298  The  Squirrel-Cage 

this  Washburn  business!  To  think  I've  pulled  that  off 
at  last!" 

"  I'm  not  mad  at  you,  Paul,"  said  Lydia,  trying  to 
speak  steadily,  and  holding  with  desperate  resolution  to 
her  purpose  of  communicating  with  her  husband.  "  I'm 
mad  at  the  conditions  that  made  you  so  sleepy  you  couldn't 
keep  awake !  All  I  had  to  say  is  that  I  don't  like  our  way 
of  life  —  I  don't  see  that  it's  making  us  any  better,  and  I 
want  Ariadne  —  I  want  our  children  to  have  a  better  one. 
I  want  you  to  help  me  make  it  so." 

Paul  stared  at  her,  stupefied  by  this  attack  on  axioms. 
"  Good  gracious,  my  dear !  What  are  you  talking  about  ? 
'Our  way  of  life!'  What  do  you  mean?  There's  noth- 
ing peculiar  about  the  way  we  live.  Our  life  is  just  like 
everybody  else's." 

Lydia  burned  with  impatience  at  the  appearance  of  this 
argument,  beyond  which  she  had  never  been  able  to  induce 
her  mother  or  Marietta  to  advance  a  step.  She  cried  out 
passionately :  "  What  if  it  is !  If  it's  not  the  right  kind  of 
life,  what  difference  does  it  make  if  everybody's  life  is 
like  it!" 

The  idea  which  her  excitement  instantly  suggested  to  Paul 
was  reassuring.  Before  Ariadne  came,  he  remembered, 
Lydia  had  had  queer  spells  of  nervous  tension.  He  patted 
her  on  the  shoulder  and  spoke  in  the  tone  used  to  soothe 
a  nervous  horse.  "  There,  Lydia !  There,  dear !  Don't 
get  so  wrought  up!  Remember  you're  not  yourself.  You 
do  too  much  thinking.  Come,  now,  just  curl  up  here  and 
put  your  head  on  my — " 

Lydia  feared  greatly  the  relaxing  influence  of  his 
caressing  touch.  If  once  he  put  forth  his  personal  magne- 
tism, it  would  be  so  hard  to  go  on.  She  drew  away  gently. 
"  Can  anybody  do  too  much  thinking,  Paul  ?  The  trouble 
must  be  that  I'm  not  thinking  right.  And,  oh,  I  want  to, 
so!  Please  help  me!  Everybody  says  you  have  such  a 
wonderful  head  for  organization  and  for  science  —  if  I 
were  a  dynamo  that  wasn't  working,  you  could  set  me 
right  1" 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  299 

Paul  laughed,  and  made  another  attempt  to  divert  her. 
"  I  couldn't  if  the  dynamo  looked  as  pretty  and  kissable  as 
you  do ! "  He  was  paying  very  little  attention  to  what 
she  said.  He  was  only  uncomfortable  and  uneasy  to  see 
her  so  white  and  trembling.  He  wished  he  had  proposed 
taking  her  out  for  the  evening.  She  had  been  having  too 
dull  a  time.  He  ought  to  see  that  she  got  more  amusement. 
They  said  that  comic  opera  now  running  in  town  was  very 
funny. 

"  Paul,  listen  to  me ! "  she  was  crying  desperately  as 
these  thoughts  went  through  his  head.  "  Listen  to  me, 
and  look  honestly  at  the  way  we've  been  living  since  we 
were  married,  and  you  must  see  that  something's  all  wrong. 
I  never  see  you  —  never,  never,  do  you  realize  that?  ex- 
cept when  you're  in  a  raging  hurry  in  the  morning  or  tired 
to  death  at  night,  and  when  I'm  just  as  tired  as  you  are, 
so  all  we  can  do  is  to  go  to  bed  so  we  can  get  up  in  the 
morning  and  begin  it  all  over  again.  Or  else  we  tire  our- 
selves out  one  degree  more  by  entertaining  people  we  don't 
really  like  —  or  rather  people  about  whose  real  selves  we 
don't  know  enough  to  know  whether  we  like  them  or  not 
—  we  have  them  because  they're  influential,  or  because 
everybody  else  entertains  them,  or  because  they  can  help 
us  to  get  on  —  or  can  be  smoothed  over  so  they  won't 
hinder  our  getting  on.  And  there's  no  prospect  of  doing 
anything  different  from  this  all  the  days  of  our  life  — " 

"  But,  look-y  here,  Lydia,  that's  the  way  things  are  in 
this  world !  The  men  have  to  go  away  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning  —  and  all  the  rest  of  what  you  say !  /  can't 
help  it !  What  do  you  come  to  me  about  it  for  ?  You  might 
as  well  break  out  crying  because  I  can't  give  you  eyes  in 
the  back  of  your  head.  That's  the  way  things  are! " 

Lydia  made  a  violent  gesture  of  unbelief.  "  That's 
what  everybody's  been  telling  me  all  my  life  —  but  now 
I'm  a  grown  woman,  with  eyes  to  see,  and  something  in- 
side me  that  won't  let  me  say  I  see  what  I  don't  —  and  I 
don't  see  that!  I  don't  believe  it  has  to  be  so.  I  can't 
believe  it ! " 


300  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Paul  laughed  a  little  impatiently,  irritated  and  uneasy, 
as  he  always  was,  at  any  attempt  to  examine  too  closely 
the  foundations  of  existing  ideas.  "  Why,  Lydia,  what's 
the  matter  with  you?  You  sound  as  though  you'd  been 
reading  some  fool  socialist  literature  or  something/' 

"  You  know  I  don't  read  anything,  Paul.  I  never  hear 
about  anything  but  novels.  I  never  have  time  for  anything 
else,  and  very  likely  I  couldn't  understand  it  if  I  read  it, 
not  having  any  education.  That's  one  thing  I  want  you 
to  help  me  with.  All  I  want  is  a  chance  for  us  to  live 
together  a  little  more,  to  have  a  few  more  thoughts  in 
common,  and,  oh!  to  be  trying  to  be  making  something 
better  out  of  ourselves  for  our  children's  sake.  I  can't  see 
that  we're  learning  to  be  anything  but  —  you,  to  be  an  ef- 
ficient machine  for  making  money,  I  to  think  of  how  to 
entertain  as  though  we  had  more  money  than  we  really 
have.  I  don't  seem  really  to  know  you  or  live  with  you 
any  more  than  if  we  were  two  guests  stopping  at  the  same 
hotel.  If  socialists  are  trying  to  fix  things  better,  why 
shouldn't  we  have  time  —  both  of  us  —  to  read  their  books ; 
and  you  could  help  me  know  what  they  mean  ?  " 

Paul  laughed  again,  a  scornful,  hateful  laugh,  which 
brought  the  color  up  to  Lydia's  pale  face  like  a  blow.  "  I 
gather,  then,  Lydia,  that  what  you're  asking  me  to  do 
is  to  neglect  my  business  in  order  to  read  socialist  literature 
with  you  ?  " 

His  wife's  rare  resentment  rose.  She  spoke  with 
dignity :  "  I  begged  you  to  be  serious,  Paul,  and  to  try 
to  understand  what  I  mean,  although  I'm  so  fumbling,  and 
say  it  so  badly.  As  for  its  being  impossible  to  change 
things,  I've  heard  you  say  a  great  many  times  that  there 
are  no  conditions  that  can't  be  changed  if  people  wou1/ 
really  try — " 

"  Good  heavens !  I  said  that  of  business  conditions ! " 
shouted  Paul,  outraged  at  being  so  misquoted. 

"Well,  if  it's  true  of  them—  No;  I  feel  that  things 
are  the  way  they  are  because  we  don't  really  care  enough 
to  have  them  some  other  way.  If  you  really  cared  as  much 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  301 

about  sharing  a  part  of  your  life  with  me  —  really  sharing 
—  as  you  do  about  getting  the  Washburn  contract — " 

Her  indignant  and  angry  tone,  so  entirely  unusual,  moved 
Paul,  more  than  her  words,  to  shocked  protest.  He  looked 
deeply  wounded,  and  his  accent  was  that  of  a  man  right- 
eously aggrieved.  "  Lydia,  I  lay  most  of  this  absurd  out- 
break to  your  nervous  condition,  and  so  I  can't  blame  you 
for  it.  But  I  can't  help  pointing  out  to  you  that  it  is  en- 
tirely uncalled  for.  There  are  few  women  who  have  a 
husband  as  absolutely  devoted  as  yours.  You  grumble 
about  my  not  sharing  my  life  with  you  —  why,  I  give  it 
to  you  entire ! "  His  astonished  bitterness  grew  as  he 
voiced  it.  "  What  am  I  working  so  hard  for  if  not  to 
provide  for  you  and  our  child  —  our  children!  Good 
Heavens!  What  more  can  I  do  for  you  than  to  keep  my 
nose  on  the  grindstone  every  minute.  There  are  limits 
to  even  a  husband's  time  and  endurance  and  capacity  for 
work." 

Lydia  heard  a  frightened  roaring  in  her  ears  at  this  un- 
expected turn  to  the  conversation.  Paul  had  never  spoken 
so  to  her  before.  This  was  a  very  different  tone  from 
his  irritation  over  defective  housekeeping.  She  was  as 
horrified  as  he  over  the  picture  that  he  held  up  with  such 
apparently  justified  indignation,  the  picture  of  her  as  a 
querulous  and  ungrateful  wife.  Why,  Paul  was  looking 
at  her  as  though  he  hated  her!  For  the  first  time  in  her 
married  life,  she  conceived  the  possibility  that  she  and 
Paul  might  quarrel,  really  seriously  quarrel,  about  funda- 
mental things.  The  idea  terrified  her  beyond  words.  Her 
mind,  undisciplined  and  never  very  clear,  became  quite 
confused,  and  only  her  long  preparation  and  expectation 
of  this  talk  enabled  her  to  keep  on  at  all,  although  now 
she  could  but  falter  ahead  blindly.  "Why,  Paul  dear  — 
don't  look  at  me  so!  I  never  dreamed  of  blaming  you 
for  it!  It's  just  because  I  want  things  better  for  you 
that  I'm  so  anxious  to — " 

"  You  haven't  noticed  me  complaining  any,  have  you  ?  " 
put  in  Paul  grimly,  still  looking  at  her  coldly. 


302  The  Squirrel-Cage 

" —  It's  because  I  can't  bear  to  see  you  work  so  hard 
to  get  me  things  I'd  ever  so  much  rather  go  without  than 
have  you  grow  so  you  can't  see  anything  but  business  — 
it  seems  all  twisted!  I'd  rather  you'd  pay  an  assistant 
to  go  off  on  these  out-of-town  trips,  and  we'd  get  along  on 
less  money  —  live  in  a  smaller  house,  and  not  entertain." 

"  Oh,  Lydia,  you  talk  like  a  child !  How  can  I  talk 
business  with  you  when  you  have  such  crazy,  impractical 
ideas?  It's  not  just  the  money  an  assistant  would  cost! 
Either  he'd  not  be  so  good  as  I,  and  then  I'd  lose  my  repu- 
tation for  efficiency  and  my  chance  for  promotion,  or  else 
he  would  be  as  good  and  he'd  get  the  job  permanently  and 
divide  the  field  with  me.  A  man  has  to  look  a  long  way 
ahead  in  business !  " 

"But,  Paul,  what  if  he  did  divide  the  field  with  you? 
What  if  you  don't  get  ahead  of  everybody  else,  if  you'd 
have  time  and  strength  to  think  of  other  things  more  — 
you  said  the  other  day  that  you  weren't  sleeping  well  any 
more,  and  you're  losing  your  taste  for  books  and  music  and 
outdoors  —  why,  I'd  rather  live  in  four  rooms  right  over 
your  office,  so  that  you  wouldn't  have  that  hour  lost  go- 
ing and  coming — " 

Paul  broke  in  with  a  curt  scorn :  "  Oh,  Lydia !  What 
nonsense!  Why  don't  you  propose  living  in  a  tent,  to 
save  rent  ?  " 

"  Why  I  would  —  I  would  in  a  minute  if  I  thought  it 
would  make  things  any  better ! "  Lydia  cried  with  a  des- 
perate simplicity. 

At  this  crowning  absurdity,  Paul  began  to  laugh,  his 
ill-humor  actually  swept  away  by  his  amusement  at  Lydia's 
preposterous  fancies.  It  was  too  foolish  to  try  to  reason 
seriously  with  her.  He  put  his  hand  on  her  shining  dark 
hair,  ruffling  it  up  like  a  teasing  boy.  "  I  guess  you'd 
better  leave  the  economic  status  of  society  alone,  Lydia. 
You  might  break  something  if  you  go  charging  around  it 
so  fierce." 

A  call  came  from  the  darkness  of  the  hall :  "  Mis' 
Hollister!" 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  303 

"  It's  Mary,"  said  Paul ;  "  probably  you  forgot  to  give 
her  any  instructions  about  breakfast,  in  your  anxiety  about 
the  future  of  the  world.  If  you  can  calm  down  enough 
for  such  prosaic  details,  do  tell  her  for  the  Lord's  sake 
not  to  put  so  much  salt  in  the  oatmeal  as  there  was  this 
morning." 

Lydia  found  the  negress  with  her  wraps  on,  glooming 
darkly,  "  Mis'  Hollister,  I'm  gwine  to  leave,"  she  announced 
briefly. 

Lydia  felt  for  a  chair.  Mary  had  promised  faithfully 
to  stay  through  the  winter,  until  after  her  confinement. 
"What's  the  matter,  Mary?" 

"  I  cyant  stay  in  no  house  wheah  de  lady  says  I  drinks." 

"  You  will  stay  until  —  until  I  am  able  to  be  about, 
won't  you  ?  "  i 

"  My  things  is  gone  aready,"  said  Mary,  moving  heavily 
toward  the  door,  "  and  I'm  gwine  now."  As  she  disap- 
peared, she  remarked  casually,  "  I  didn't  have  no  time  to 
wash  the  supper  dishes.  Good-by." 

"What's  the  matter  with  Mary?"  called  Paul. 

Lydia  went  back  to  him,  trying  to  smile.  "  She's  gone 
—  left,"  she  announced. 

Paul  opened  his  eyes  with  a  look  of  keen  annoyance. 
"  You  can't  break  in  a  new  cook  now! "  he  said.  "  She 
can't  go  now !  " 

"  She's  gone,"  repeated  Lydia  wearily.  "  I  don't  know 
how  anybody  could  make  her  stay." 

Paul  got  up  from  the  couch  with  his  lips  closed  tightly 
together,  and,  sitting  down  in  a  straight  chair,  took  Lydia 
on  his  knee  as  though  she  were  a  child.  "  Now,  see  here, 
my  wife,  you  mustn't  get  your  feelings  hurt  if  I  do  some 
plain  talking  for  a  minute.  You've  been  telling  me  what 
you  think  about  things,  and  now  it's  my  turn.  And  what  / 
think  is  that  if  my  dear  young  wife  would  spend  more  time 
looking  after  her  own  business  she'd  have  fewer  complaints 
to  make  about  my  doing  the  same.  The  thing  for  you 
to  do  is  to  accept  conditions  as  they  are  and  do  your  best 
in  them  —  and,  really,  Lydia,  make  your  best  a  little  better." 


304  The  Squirrel-Cage 

Lydia  was  on  the  point  of  nervous  tears  from  sheer 
fatigue,  but  she  clung  to  her  point  with  a  tenacity  which 
in  so  yielding  a  nature  was  profoundly  eloquent.  "  But, 
Paul,  if  everybody  had  always  settled  down  and  accepted 
conditions,  and  never  tried  to  make  them  better  — " 

"  There's  a  difference  between  conditions  that  have  to  be 
accepted  and  those  that  can  be  changed,"  said  Paul  senten- 
tiously. 

Lydia  tore  herself  away  from  him  and  stood  up,  trem- 
bling with  excitement.  She  felt  that  they  had  stumbled 
upon  the  very  root  of  the  matter.  "  But  who's  to  decide 
which  our  conditions  are  ?  " 

Paul  caught  at  her,  laughing.  "  I  am,  of  course,  you 
firebrand !  Didn't  you  promise  to  honor  and  obey  ? " 
He  went  on  with  more  seriousness,  a  tender,  impatient, 
condescending  seriousness :  "  Now,  Lydia,  just  stop  and 
think!  Do  you,  can  you,  consider  this  a  good  time  for 
you  to  try  to  settle  the  affairs  of  the  universe  —  still  all 
upset  about  your  father's  death,  and  goodness  knows  what 
crazy  ideas  it  started  in  your  head  —  and  with  an  addition 
to  the  family  expected!  And  the  cook  just  left!" 

"  But  that's  the  way  things  always  are !  "  she  protested. 
"  That's  life.  There's  never  a  time  when  something  im- 
portant hasn't  just  happened  or  isn't  just  going  to  happen, 
you  have  to  go  right  ahead,  or  you  never  —  why,  Paul, 
I've  waited  for  two  years  for  a  really  good  chance  for  this 
talk  with  you — " 

"  Thank  the  Lord !  "  he  ejaculated.  "  I  hope  it'll  be  an- 
other two  before  you  treat  me  to  another  evening  like  this.] 
Oh,  pshaw,  Lydia!  You're  morbid,  moping  around  the 
house  too  much  —  and  your  condition  and  all.  Wait  till 
you've  got  another  baby  to  play  with  —  I  don't  remember 
you  had  any  doubts  of  anything  the  first  six  months  of 
Ariadne's  life.  You  ought  to  have  a  baby  a  year  to  keep 
you  out  of  mischief !  Just  you  wait  till  you  can  entertain 
and  live  like  folks  again.  In  the  meantime  you  hustle 
around  and  keep  busy  and  you  won't  be  so  bothered  with 
thinking  and  worrying." 


Lydia  Reaches  Her  Goal  305 

Unknowingly,  they  had  drawn  again  near  to  the  heart 
of  their  discussion.  Unknowingly  Lydia  stood  before  the 
answer  from  her  husband,  the  final  statement  that  she 
wished  to  hear. 

"  But  to  hustle  and  keep  busy  —  that's  good  only  so  long 
as  you  keep  at  it.  The  minute  you  stop  — " 

Paul's  answer  was  an  epoch  in  her  thought. 

"Don't  stop!"  he  cried,  surprised  at  her  overlooking  so 
obvious  a  solution. 

At  this  bullet-like  retort,  Lydia  shivered  as  though  she 
had  been  struck.  She  turned  away  with  a  blind  impulse 
for  flight.  Her  gesture  brought  her  husband  flying  to  her. 
He  took  her  forcibly  in  his  arms.  "  What  the  devil  — 
what  is  the  matter  now?"  he  asked,  praying  for  patience. 
She  hung  unresponsive  in  his  grasp.  "  What's  the  mat- 
ter ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  You've  just  told  me  a  horrible  thing,"  she  whispered ; 
"  that  life  is  so  dreadful  that  the  only  way  we  can  get 
through  it  at  all  is  by  never  looking  at — " 

Paul  actually  shook  her  in  his  exasperation.  "  Gee  whiz, 
Lydia!  you're  enough  to  drive  a  man  to  drink!  I  never 
told  you  any  such  melodramatic  nonsense.  I  told  you 
straight  horse  sense,  which  is  that  if  you  took  more  interest 
in  your  work,  in  the  work  that  every  woman  of  your  class 
and  position  has  to  do,  you'd  have  less  time  to  think  foolish- 
ness—  and  your  husband  would  have  an  easier  life." 

Her  trembling  lips  opened  to  speak  again,  but  he  closed 
them  with  a  firm  hand.  "  And  now,  as  your  natural 
guardian,  I'm  not  going  to  let  you  say  another  word  about 
it.  You  dear  little  silly !  However  did  you  get  us  so  wound 
'up !  Blessed  if  I  have  any  idea  what  it's  all  been  about !  " 

He  was  determined  to  end  the  discussion.  He  was  re- 
lieved beyond  expression  that  he  had  been  able  to  get 
through  it  without  saying  anything  unkind  to  his  wife.  He 
never  meant  to  do  that.  He  now  went  on,  shaking  a  finger 
at  her: 

"  You  listen  to  me,  Lydia-Emery-that-was !  Do  you 
know  what  we  are  going  to  do  ?  We're  going  out  into  that 


306  The  Squirrel-Cage 

howling  desolation  that  Mary  has  probably  left  in  the 
kitchen,  and  we're  going  to  see  if  we  can  find  a  couple  of 
clean  glasses,  and  we're  going  to  have  a  glass  of  beer  apiece 
and  a  ham  sandwich  and  a  piece  of  the  pie  that's  left  over 
from  dinner.  You  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with 
you,  but  I  do!  You're  starved!  You're  as  hungry  as 
you  can  be,  aren't  you  now  ?  " 

Lydia  had  sunk  into  a  chair  during  this  speech  and  was 
now  regarding  him  fixedly,  her  hands  clasped  between  her 
knees.  At  his  final  appeal  to  her,  she  closed  her  eyes, 
"  Yes,"  she  said  with  a  long  breath ;  "  yes,  I  am." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
"  THE  AMERICAN  MAN  " 

A  RIPPLE  from  the  surging  wave  of  culture  which,  for 
some  years,  had  been  sweeping  over  the  women's  clubs 
of  the  Middle  West,  began  to  agitate  the  extremely  station- 
ary waters  of  Endbury  social  life.  The  Women's  Literary 
Club  felt  that,  as  the  long-established  intellectual  authority 
of  the  town,  it  should  somehow  join  in  the  new  movement. 
The  organization  of  this  club  dated  back  to  a  period  now 
comparatively  remote.  Mrs.  Emery,  who  had  been  a 
charter  member,  had  never  been  more  genuinely  puzzled  by 
Dr.  Melton's  eccentricities  than  when  he  had  received  with 
a  yell  of  laughter  her  announcement  that  she  had  just 
helped  to  form  a  "  literary  club,"  which  would  be  the 
"  most  exclusive  social  organization  "  in  Endbury.  It  had 
lived  up  to  this  expectation.  To  belong  to  it  meant  much, 
and  both  Paul  and  Flora  Burgess  had  been  gratified  when, 
on  her  mother's  resignation,  Lydia  had  been  elected  to  the 
vacant  place. 

This  close  corporation,  composed  of  ladies  in  the  very 
inner  circle,  felt  keenly  the  stimulating  consciousness  of  its 
importance  in  the  higher  life  of  the  town,  and  had  too 
much  civic  pride  to  allow  Endbury  to  lag  behind  the  other 
towns  in  Ohio.  Columbus  women,  owing  to  the  large  Ger- 
man population  of  the  city,  were  getting  a  reputation  for 
being  musical ;  Cincinnati  had  always  been  artistic ;  Toledo 
had  literary  aspirations;  Cleveland  went  in  for  civic  im- 
provement. The  leading  spirits  of  the  Woman's  Literary 
Club  of  Endbury  cast  about  for  some  other  sphere  of  in- 
terest to  annex  as  their  very  own  property. 

They  were  hesitating  whether  to  undertake  a  campaign  of 

307 


308  The  Squirrel-Cage 

municipal  house-cleaning,  or  to  devote  themselves  to  the 
study  of  the  sonnet  form  in  English  verse,  when  an  un- 
usual opportunity  for  distinction  opened  before  them. 
The  daughter  of  the  club's  president  was  married  to  a 
professor  in  the  State  University  of  Michigan,  and  on  one 
of  her  visits  home  she  suggested  that  her  mother's  club 
invite  to  address  it  the  Alliance  Frangaise  lecturer  of  that 
year.  He  had  to  come  out  to  Ann  Arbor,  anyhow  —  Ann 
Arbor  was  not  very  far  from  Endbury  —  not  far,  that  is, 
as  compared  with  the  journey  the  lecturer  would  have 
made  from  Columbia  and  Harvard  to  "  Michigan  State." 
One  of  the  club  husbands  was  a  railroad  man  and,  maybe, 
could  give  them  transportation.  Frenchmen  were  always 
anxious  to  make  all  the  money  they  could  —  she  was  sure 
that  M.  Buisine  could  be  induced  to  come  for  a  not  ex- 
travagant honorarium.  Why  should  not  Endbury  go  in 
for  cosmopolitanism?  That  certainly  would  be  something 
new  in  Ohio. 

And  so  it  was  arranged  for  an  afternoon  for  the  first 
week  in  December,  a  very  grand  "  house-darkened-and- 
candle-lighted  performance,"  as  Madeleine  Lowder  labeled 
this  last  degree  of  Endbury  ceremonious  elaboration.  It 
was  held  at  the  house  of  Paul's  aunt,  so  that,  naturally, 
Lydia  could  by  no  means  absent  herself.  Madeleine  came 
for  her,  and  together  they  took  Ariadne  to  Marietta's 
house  and  left  her  there  for  safe-keeping.  Lydia  was  in- 
tensely conscious,  under  her  sister's  forbearing  silence, 
that  Marietta  had  never  been  asked  to  join  the  Woman's 
Literary  Club.  Even  the  jaunty  Madeleine  was  aware  of  a 
tension  in  the  brief  conversation  over  the  child's  head,  and 
remarked  as  she  and  Lydia  walked  away  from  the  house: 
"  Well,  really  now,  was  that  the  most  tactful  thing  in  the 
world?" 

"  What  else  could  I  do  ?  "  asked  Lydia,  at  her  wit's  end. 
"  I  don't  dare  leave  Ariadne  with  those  awful  things  from 
the  employment  agencies,  and  'Stashie's  not  coming  back 
till  next  week." 


"The  American  Man"  309 

"  Oh,  she's  coming  again,  is  she  ?  "  commented  her  com- 
panion. "  Well,  that'll  mean  lots  of  fun  watching  Paul 
squirm.  But  don't  mind  him,  Lydia."  Madeleine  was  one 
of  the  women  who  prided  herself  on  her  loyal  sense  of 
solidarity  among  her  sex.  "  If  he  says  a  word,  you  poke 
him  one  in  the  eye.  Keep  her  till  after  your  confinement, 
anyhow.  A  woman  ought  to  be  allowed  to  run  her  house 
without  any  man  butting  in.  We  let  them  alone;  they 
ought  to  let  us." 

There  never  was  a  person  in  the  world,  Lydia  thought, 
in  whom  marriage  had  made  less  difference  than  in  Paul's 
sister.  She  was  exactly  the  same  as  in  her  girlhood. 
Lydia  wondered  at  her  with  an  ever-growing  amazement. 
The  enormous  significance  of  the  marriage  service,  the 
mysteries  of  the  dual  existence,  her  new  responsibilities, 
—  they  all  seemed  non-existent.  Paul  said  approvingly 
that  Madeleine  knew  how  to  get  along  with  less  fuss  than 
any  woman  he  ever  saw.  Her  breezy  high  spirits  were 
much  admired  in  Endbury,  and  her  good  humor  and 
prodigious  satisfaction  with  life  were  considered  very 
cheerfully  infectious. 

The  two  women  had  reached  Madame  Hollister's  house 
while  Madeleine  was  expounding  her  theory  of  matrimony, 
and  now  took  their  places  in  the  throng  of  extremely  well- 
dressed  women  sitting  on  camp  chairs,  the  rows  of  which 
filled  the  two  parlors.  The  lecturer  with  the  president  of 
the  club,  occupied  a  dais  at  the  other  end  of  the  room. 
He  was  a  tall,  ugly  man,  with  prominent  blue  eyes,  gray 
hair  upstanding  in  close-cropped  military  stiffness,  and  a 
two-pronged  grizzled  beard.  He  was  looking  over  his 
audience  with  a  leisurely  smiling  scrutiny  that  roused  in 
Lydia  a  secret  resentment. 

"He's  very  distinguished  looking,  isn't  he?"  whispered 
Madeleine.  "  So  different !  And  cool!  I'd  like  to  see 
Pete  Lowder  sit  up  there  to  be  stared  at  by  all  this  gang 
of  women." 

"  Oh,  he's  probably  used  to  it,"  said  her  neighbor  on  the 


3io  The  Squirrel-Cage 

other  side.  "They  say  he's  spoken  before  any  number  of 
women's  clubs.  He  does  two  a  day  sometimes.  He's  seen 
lots  of  American  society  women  before  now." 

Madeleine  stared  at  him  curiously.  "  I  wonder  what  he 
thinks  of  us !  I  wonder !  I'd  give  anything  to  know ! " 
she  said.  She  repeated  this  sentiment  in  varying  forms 
several  times. 

Lydia  wondered  why  Madeleine  should  care  so  acutely 
about  the  opinion  of  a  stranger  and  a  foreigner,  and  finally, 
in  her  naive,  straightforward  way,  she  put  this  question  to 
her.  Madeleine  was  not  one  of  the  many  who  evaded 
Lydia's  questions,  or  answered  them  only  with  a  laugh  at 
their  oddity.  She  was  very  straightforward  herself  and 
generally  had  a  very  clear  idea  of  what  underlay  any  ac- 
tion or  feeling  on  her  part.  But  this  time  her  usual  rough- 
and-ready  methods  of  analysis  seemed  at  fault. 

"  Oh,  because,"  she  said  indefinitely.  "  Don't  you  al- 
ways want  to  know  what  men  are  thinking  of  you?" 

"  Men  that  know  something  about  me,  maybe,"  Lydia 
amended. 

Madeleine  laughed.  They're,  the  ones  that  don't  think 
at  all,  one  way  or  the  other,"  she  reminded  her  sister-in- 
law. 

The  president  of  the  club  rose.  Her  introduction  of  the 
speaker  was  greeted  with  cordial,  muted  applause  from 
gloved  hands.  There  was  a  scraping  of  chairs,  a  stir  of 
draperies,  and  little  gusts  of  delicate  perfumes  floated  out,  as 
the  hundred  or  more  women  settled  themselves  at  the  right 
angle,  all  their  keen,  handsome,  nervous  faces  lifted  to  the 
speaker  in  a  pleasant  expectancy.  Not  only  were  they 
agreeably  aware  that  they  were  forming  part  of  one  of 
the  most  recherche  events  of  Endbury's  social  life,  but 
they  were  remembering  piquant  rumors  of  M.  Buisine's 
sensational  attacks  on  American  materialism.  The  after- 
noon promised  something  more  interesting  than  their  usual 
programme  of  home-made  essays  and  papers. 

Their  expectation  was  not  disappointed.  In  fluent  Eng- 
lish, apparently  smooth  with  long  practice  on  the  same 


"The  American  Man"  311 

theme,  he  wove  felicitous  and  forceful  elaborations  on  the 
proverb  relating  to  people  who  are  absent  and  the  estima- 
tion in  which  they  are  held  by  those  present.  He  had  seen 
in  America,  he  said,  everything  but  the  American  man. 
He  had  seen  hundreds  and  thousands  of  women  as  well- 
dressed  as  Parisiennes  (and,  as  a  rule,  much  more  ex- 
pensively), as  self-possessed  as  English  great  ladies,  as 
cultivated  as  Russian  princesses,  as  universally  and  vari- 
ously handsome  as  visions  in  a  painter's  dream — ("He's 
not  afraid  of  laying  it  on  thick,  is  he  ?  "  whispered  Made- 
leine with  an  appreciative  laugh) — but,  except  for  a  few 
professors  in  college,  he  had  seen  no  men.  He  had  in- 
quired for  them  everywhere  and  was  told  that  he  did  not 
see  them  because  he  was  a  man  of  letters.  If  he  had  been 
the  inventor  of  a  new  variety  of  railroad  brake  he  would 
have  seen  millions.  He  was  told  that  the  men,  unlike  their 
wives,  had  no  intellectual  interests,  had  no  clubs  with  any 
serious  purposes,  had  no  artistic  aims,  had  no  home  life, 
no  knowledge  of  their  children,  no  interest  in  education  — 
that,  in  short,  they  left  the  whole  business  of  worthy  living 
to  their  wives,  and  devoted  themselves  exclusively  to  the 
wild-beast  joys  of  tearing  and  rending  their  business  com- 
petitors. 

He  gave  many  picturesque  instances  of  his  contention, 
he  sketched  several  lively  and  amusing  portraits  of  the  one 
or  two  business  men  he  had  succeeded  in  running  down; 
their  tongue-tied  stupefaction  before  the  ordinary  topics 
of  civilization,  their  scorn  of  all  aesthetic  considerations; 
their  incapacity  to  conceive  of  an  intellectual  life  as  worthy 
a  grown  man;  the  Stone-age  simplicity  with  which  they 
referred  everything  to  savage  cunning;  their  oblivion  to 
any  other  standard  than  "  success,"  by  which  they  meant 
possessing  something  that  they  had  taken  away  by  force 
from  somebody  else. 

It  was  indeed  a  very  entertaining  lecture,  a  most  stimulat- 
ing, interesting  experience  to  the  crowd  of  well-dressed 
women;  although  perhaps  some  of  them  found  it  a  little 
long  after  the  dining-room  across  the  hall  began  to  be  filled 


312  The  Squirrel-Cage 

with  waiters  preparing  the  refreshments  and  an  appetizing 
smell  of  freshly-made  coffee  filled  the  air.  Still,  it  was  a 
lecture  they  had  paid  for,  and  it  was  gratifying  to  have  it 
so  full  and  conscientiously  elaborated. 

The  ideas  promulgated  were  not  startlingly  new  to  them, 
since  they  had  read  magazine  articles  on  "  Why  American 
Women  Marry  Foreigners  "  and  similar  analyses  of  the  so- 
ciety in  which  they  lived ;  but  to  have  it  said  to  one's  face, 
by  a  living  man,  a  tall,  ugly,  distinguished  foreigner,  with 
the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  in  his  buttonhole, — 
that  brought  it  home  to  one!  They  nodded  their  beauti- 
fully-hatted heads  at  the  truth  of  his  well-chosen,  significant 
anecdotes,  they  laughed  at  his  sallies,  they  applauded 
heartily  at  the  end  when  the  lecturer  sat  down,  the  little 
smile,  that  Lydia  found  so  teasing,  still  on  his  bearded  lips. 

"Well,  he  hit  things  off  pretty  close,  for  a  foreigner, 
didn't  he  ?  "  commented  Madeleine  cheerfully,  gathering  her 
white  furs  up  to  the  whiter  skin  of  her  long,  fair  throat 
and  preparing  for  a  rush  on  the  refreshment  room.  "  He 
must  have  kept  his  eyes  open  pretty  wide  since  he  landed." 

Lydia  did  not  answer,  nor  did  she  join  in  the  stampede  to 
the  dining-room.  She  sat  still,  her  hands  clasped  tightly 
in  her  lap,  her  eyes  very  bright  and  dark  in  her  pale  face. 
She  was  left  quite  alone  in  the  deserted  room.  Across  the 
hall  was  the  loud,  incessant  uproar  of  feminine  conversa- 
tion released  from  the  imprisonment  of  an  hour's  silence. 
From  the  scraps  of  talk  that  were  intelligible,  it  might  have 
been  one  of  her  own  receptions.  Lydia  heard  not  a  men- 
tion of  the  opinions  to  which  they  had  been  listening.  Ap- 
parently, they  were  regarded  as  an  entertaining  episode  in 
a  social  afternoon.  She  listened  intently.  She  looked 
across  at  the  crowd  of  her  acquaintances  as  though  she  were 
seeing  them  for  the  first  time.  In  their  midst  was  the  tall 
foreigner,  smiling,  talking,  bowing,  drinking  tea.  He  was 
being  introduced  in  succession  to  all  of  his  admiring  audi- 
tors. 

Lydia  rose  to  go  and  made  her  way  to  the  dressing-room. 


"The  American  Man"  313 

on  the  second  floor  for  her  wraps.  As  she  returned  toward 
the  head  of  the  stairs  she  saw  a  man's  figure  ascending,  and 
stood  aside  to  let  him  pass.  He  bowed  with  an  unconscious 
assurance  unlike  that  of  any  man  Lydia  had  ever  seen, 
and  looked  at  her  pale  face  and  burning  eyes  with  some 
curiosity.  A  faint  aroma  of  delicate  food  and  fading 
flowers  and  woman's  sachet-powder  hung  about  him.  It 
was  the  lecturer,  fresh  from  his  throng  of  admirers. 
Lydia's  heart  leaped  to  a  sudden  valiant  impulse,  astonish- 
ing to  her  usual  shyness,  and  she  spoke  out  boldly,  hastily : 
"  Why  did  you  tell  us  all  that  about  our  men  ?  Didn't  you 
think  any  of  us  would  realize  that  they  are  good  —  our 
men  are  —  good  and  pure  and  kind !  Didn't  you  think  we'd 
know  that  anything  that's  the  matter  with  them  must  be  the 
matter  with  us,  too  ?  They  had  mothers  as  well  as  fathers ! 
It's  not  fair  to  blame  everything  on  the  men !  It's  not  fair, 
and  it  can't  be  true!  We're  all  in  together,  men  and  wo- 
men. One  can't  be  anything  the  other  isn't ! " 

She  spoke  with  a  swift,  grave  directness,  looking  squarely 
into  the  man's  eyes,  for  she  was  as  tall  as  he.  They  were 
quite  alone  in  the  upper  hall.  From  below  came  the  clatter 
of  the  talking,  eating  women.  The  Frenchman  did  not 
speak  for  a  moment.  For  the  first  time  the  faint  smile  on 
his  lips  died  away.  He  paid  to  Lydia  the  tribute  of  a  look 
as  grave  as  her  own.  Finally,  "  Madame,  you  should  be 
French,"  he  told  her. 

The  remark  was  so  unexpected  an  answer  to  her  attack 
that  Lydia's  eyes  wavered.  "  I  mean,"  he  went  on  in  ex- 
planation, "  that  you  are  acting  as  my  wife  would  act  if  she 
heard  the  men  of  her  nation  abused  in  their  absence.  I 
mean  also  that  I  have  delivered  practically  this  same  lec- 
ture over  thirty  times  in  America  before  audiences  of  wo- 
men, and  you  are  the  first  to  —  Madame,  I  should  like  to 
know  your  husband !  "  he  exclaimed  with  another  bow. 

"  My  husband  is  like  all  other  American  men,"  cried 
Lydia  sharply,  touched  to  the  quick  by  this  reference.  "  It 
is  because  he  is  that  I  — "  She  broke  off  with  her  gesture 


314  The  Squirrel-Cage 

of  passionate  unresignation  to  her  lack  of  fluency.  Already 
the  heat  of  the  impulse  that  had  carried  her  into  speech  was 
dying  away.  She  began  to  hesitate  for  words. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  say  what  I  mean  —  you  must  know  it,  any- 
how! You  blame  the  fathers  for  leaving  all  the  bringing- 
up  of  the  children  to  their  wives,  and  yet  you  point  out 
that  the  sons  keep  growing  up  all  the  time  to  be  —  to  be  —  to 
be  all  you  blame  their  fathers  for  being!  If  we  women 
were  half  so  —  fine  —  as  you  tell  us,  why  haven't  we 
changed  things  ?  " 

The  foreigner  made  a  vivid,  surprised,  affirmatory  ges- 
ture. "  Exactly !  exactly !  exactly,  Madame !  "  he  cried. 
"  It  is  the  question  I  have  asked  myself  a  thousand  times : 
Why  is  it  —  why  is  it  that  women  so  strong-willed,  so  un- 
yielding in  the  seeking  what  they  desire,  why  is  it  that  ap- 
parently they  have  no  influence  on  the  general  fabric  of  the 
society  in — " 

"  Perhaps  it  is,"  said  Lydia  unsparingly,  her  latent  anger 
coming  to  the  surface  again  and  furnishing  her  fluency, 
"  perhaps  it  is  because  people  who  see  our  faults  don't 
help  us  to  correct  them,  but  flatter  us  by  telling  us  we 
haven't  any,  and  all  the  time  think  ill  of  us  behind  our 
backs." 

The  lecturer  began  to  answer  with  aplomb  and  an  at- 
tempt at  graceful  cynicism :  "  Ah,  Madame,  put  yourself 
in  my  place!  I  am  addressing  audiences  of  women. 
Would  it  be  tactful  to — "  but  under  Lydia's  honest  eyes 
he  faltered,  stopped,  flushed  darkly  under  his  heavy  beard, 
up  over  his  high,  narrow  forehead  to  the  roots  of  his  gray 
hair.  He  swallowed  hard.  "  Madame,"  he  said,  "  you 
have  rebuked  me  —  deservedly.  I  —  I  demand  your  par- 
don." 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  mind  me,"  said  Lydia  humbly ;  "  my 
opinion  doesn't  amount  to  anything.  I  oughtn't  to  talk, 
either.  I  don't  do  anything  different  from  the  rest  —  the 
women  downstairs,  I  mean.  I  can  only  see  there's  some- 
thing wrong — "  She  found  the  other's  gaze  into  her 
troubled  eyes  so  friendly  that  she  was  moved  to  cry  out  to 


"The  American  Man"  315 

him,  all  her  hostility  gone :  "  What  is  the  trouble,  any- 
how?" 

The  lecturer  flushed  again,  this  time  touched  by  her  ap- 
peal. "  I  proudly  put  at  your  service  any  reflections  I 
have  made  —  as  though  you  were  my  daughter.  I  have  a 
daughter  about  your  age,  who  is  also  married  —  who  faces 
your  problems.  Madame,  you  look  fatigued  —  will  you 
not  sit  down?"  He  led  her  to  a  sofa  on  one  side  of  the 
hall  and  took  a  seat  beside  her.  "  Is  not  the  trouble/'  he 
began,  "  that  the  women  have  too  much  leisure  and  the  men 
too  little  —  the  women  too  little  work,  the  men  too  much  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes,  yes !  "  Lydia's  meditations  had  long  ago 
carried  her  past  that  point ;  she  was  impatient  at  his  taking 
time  to  state  it.  "  But  how  can  we  change  it?" 

"  You  cannot  change  it  in  a  day.  It  has  taken  many 
years  to  grow.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  one  way  to 
change  it  is  by  using  your  leisure  differently.  Even  those 
women  who  use  their  leisure  for  the  best  self -improvement 
have  not  used  it  well.  Many  of  my  countrymen  say  that 
the  culture  of  American  women  is  like  a  child's  idea  of 
ornamentation  —  the  hanging  on  the  outside  of  all  odd  bits 
of  broken  finery.  I  have  not  found  it  always  so.  I  have 
met  many  learned  women  here,  many  women  more  culti- 
vated than  my  own  wife.  But  listen,  Madame,  to  the 
words  of  an  old  man.  Culture  is  dust  and  ashes  if  the 
spiritual  foundations  of  life  are  not  well  laid ;  and,  believe 
me,  it  takes  two,  a  man  and  a  woman,  to  lay  those  founda- 
tions. It  can  not  be  done  alone." 

"  But  how,  how  — "  began  Lydia  impatiently. 

"  In  the  only  way  that  anything  can  be  accomplished  in 
this  world,  by  working !  Your  women  have  not  worked  pa- 
tiently, resolutely,  against  the  desertion  of  their  men. 
Worse  —  they  have  encouraged  it!  Have  you  never  heard 
an  American,  woman  say :  *  Oh,  I  can't  bear  a  man  around 
the  house !  They  are  so  in  the  way ! '  Or,  '  I  let  my  hus- 
band's business  alone.  I  want  him  to  let  — ' " 

He  imitated  an  accent  so  familiar  to  Lydia  that  she 
winced.  "  Oh,  don't !  "  she  said.  "  I  see  all  that." 


316  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  You  must  find  few  to  see  with  you." 

"  But  how  to  change  it  ? "  She  leaned  toward  him  as 
though  he  could  impart  some  magic  formula  to  her. 

"  With  the  men,  work  to  have  them  share  your  problems 
—  work  to  share  theirs.  Do  not  be  discouraged  by  repeated 
failure.  Defeat  should  not  exist  for  the  spirit.  And,  oh, 
the  true  way  — you  pointed  it  out  in  your  first  words.  You 
have  the  training  of  the  children.  Their  ideals  are  yours 
to  make.  A  generation  is  a  short — " 

His  face  answered  more  and  more  the  eager  intentness 
of  her  own.  He  raised  his  hand  with  a  gesture  that  under- 
lined his  next  words :  "  But  remember  always,  always, 
what  Amiel  says,  that  a  child  will  divine  what  we 
really  worship,  and  that  no  teaching  will  avail  with  him  if 
we  teach  in  contradiction  to  what  we  are." 

They  were  interrupted  by  a  loud  hail  from  the  stairs. 
Madeleine  Lowder's  handsome  head  showed  through  the 
balustrade,  and  back  of  her  were  other  amused  faces. 

"  I  started  to  look  you  up,  Lydia,"  she  said,  advancing 
upon  them  hilariously,  "  I  thought  maybe  you  weren't  feel- 
ing well,  and  then  I  saw  you  monopolizing  the  lion  so  that 
everybody  was  wondering  where  in  the  world  he  was,  and 
you  were  so  wrapped  up  that  you  never  even  noticed  me,  so 
I  motioned  the  others  to  see  what  a  demure  little  cat  of  a 
sister  I  have." 

She  stood  before  them  at  the  end  of  this  facetious  ex- 
planation, laughing,  frank,  sure  of  herself,  and  as  beautiful 
as  a  great  rosy  flower. 

"  Your  sister"  said  the  lecturer  incredulously  to  Lydia. 

"  My  husband's  sister,"  Lydia  corrected  him,  and  pre- 
sented the  newcomer  in  one  phrase. 

"  Isn't  she  a  sly,  designing  creature,  Mr.  Buisine?"  cried 
Madeleine,  in  her  usual  state  of  hearty  enjoyment  of  her 
situation.  "  You  haven't  met  many  as  up-and-coming, 
have  you  now  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  your  adjective,  Ma- 
demoiselle; but  it  is  true  that  I  have  met  few  like  your 
brother's  wife." 


"The  American  Man"  317 

"  I'm  not  Mademoiselle ! "  Madeleine  was  greatly 
amused  at  the  idea. 

The  lecturer  looked  at  her  with  a  return  to  his  enigmatic 
smile  of  the  earlier  afternoon.  "  I  never  saw  a  person  who 
looked  more  unmarried  than  yourself,  Mademoiselle,"  he 
persisted. 

"  Oh,  we  American  women  know  the  secret  of  not  look- 
ing married,"  said  Madeleine  proudly. 

"  You  do  indeed,"  said  the  Frenchman  with  the  manner 
of  gallantry.  "  All  of  you  look  unmarried." 

Lydia  rose  to  go.  The  lecturer  looked  at  her,  his  eyes 
softening,  and  made  a  silent  gesture  of  farewell. 

He  turned  back  to  Madeleine.  "  But  I  am"  she  assured 
him,  pleased  and  flattered  with  the  centering  of  their  persi- 
flage on  herself.  She  made  a  gesture  toward  Lydia,  dis- 
appearing down  the  stairs.  "  I'm  as  much  married  as  she 
is!" 

M.  Buisine  continued  smiling.  "  That  is  quite,  quite 
incredible,"  he  told  her. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


'    ...    in  tragic  life,  God  wot, 
No  villain  need  be.    Passions  spin  the  flat.' 


"  SAY,  Lydia,"  said  Madeleine  with  her  bluff  good  hu- 
mor, coming  into  the  house  a  few  days  after  the  French 
lecture,  "  say,  I'm  awfully  sorry  I  told  Paul !  I  never 
supposed  he'd  go  and  get  mad.  It  was  just  my  fool  notion 
of  being  funny." 

Lydia  was  dusting  the  balustrade,  her  back  to  her  visitor. 
She  tingled  all  through  at  this  speech,  and  for  an  instant 
went  on  with  her  work,  trying  to  decide  if  she  should  betray 
the  fact  that  she  knew  nothing  of  the  incident  to  which 
Madeleine's  remark  seemed  to  refer,  or  if  she  should,  as  she 
had  done  so  many  times  already,  conceal  under  a  silence 
her  ignorance  of  what  her  husband  told  other  people.  She 
never  learned  of  matters  pertaining  to  Paul's  profession  ex- 
cept from  chance  remarks  of  his  business  associates.  He 
had  not  even  told  her,  until  questioned,  about  his  great  in- 
spiration for  rearranging  the  territory  covered  in  that  region 
by  his  company;  a  plan  that  must  have  engrossed  his 
thoughts  and  fired  his  enthusiasm  during  months  of  ap- 
parently common  life  with  his  wife.  And  Paul  had  been 
genuinely  surprised,  and  a  little  put  out  at  her  desire  to 
know  of  it. 

She  decided  that  she  dared  not  in  this  instance  keep  si- 
lent. She  was  too  entirely  in  the  dark  as  to  what  Madeleine 
had  done.  "  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about, 
Madeleine,"  she  said,  turning  around,  dust-cloth  in  hand, 
trying  to  speak  casually. 

Her  sister-in-law  stared.  "  Didn't  Paul  come  home  and 
give  it  to  you  ?  He  looked  as  though  he  were  going  to." 

318 


Passions  Spin  the  Plot  319 

Lydia's  heart  sank  in  a  vague  premonition  of  evil. 
"  Paul  hasn't  said  anything  to  me.  Why  in  the  world 
should  he?  Is  it  about  'Stashie?  She's  been  back  sev- 
eral days  now,  but  I  thought  he  hadn't  noticed  her  much." 

"  Well,  he  hasn't  said  anything,  that's  a  fact ! "  exclaimed 
Madeleine,  with  the  frank  implication  in  her  voice  that  she 
had  not  before  believed  Lydia's  statement.  "  My,  no !  It's 
not  about  'Stashie.  It's  about  the  French  lecturer." 

Lydia's  astonishment  at  this  unexpected  answer  quite 
took  away  her  breath.  "About  the — "  she  began. 

"  Why,  look-y  here,  it  was  this  way,"  explained  Madeleine 
rapidly.  "  I  told  you  I  was  only  joking.  I  thought  it 
would  be  fun  to  tease  Paul  about  the  mash  you  made  on  old 
What's-his-name  —  about  your  sitting  off  on  a  sofa  with 
him,  and  being  so  wrapped  up  you  didn't  even  notice  when 
the  whole  gang  of  us  came  to  look  at  you  —  and  maybe  I 
stretched  it  some  about  how  you  looked  leaning  forward  and 
gazing  into  his  eyes  — "  She  broke  off  with  a  laugh,  cheer- 
fully unable  to  continue  a  serious  attitude  toward  life. 
"  Oh,  never  you  mind !  It  does  a  married  man  good  to 
make  him  jealous  once  in  a  while.  Keeps  'em  from  getting 
too  stodgy  and  husbandy." 

"Jealous!"  cried  Lydia.  "Paul  jealous!  Of  me! 
Never !  "  Her  certainty  on  the  point  was  instant  and  fixed. 

"  Well,  you'd  ha'  thought  he  was,  if  you'd  seen  him.  I 
was  jollying  him  along  —  we  were  in  the  trolley,  going  to 
Endbury.  I  had  to  take  that  early  car  so's  to  keep  a  date 
with  Briggs,  and,  oh,  Lydia!  that  brown  suit  he's  making 
for  me  is  a  dream,  simply  a  dream !  He's  put  a  little  braid, 
just  the  least  little  bit,  along — " 

"What  did  Paul  say?" 

"  Paul  ?  Oh,  yes  —  How'd  I  get  switched  off  onto 
Briggs?  Why,  Paul  didn't  say  anything;  that  was  what 
made  me  see  he  wasn't  taking  it  right.  He  just  sat  still 
and  listened  and  listened  till  it  made  me  feel  foolish.  I 
thought  he'd  jolly  me  back,  you  know.  He's  usually  a 
great  hand  for  that.  And  then  when  I  looked  at  him  I 
saw  he  looked  as  black  as  a  thundercloud  —  that  nasty  look 


320  The  Squirrel-Cage 

he  has  when  he's  real  mad.  When  we  were  children  and 
he'd  look  that  way,  I'd  grab  up  any  old  thing  and  hit  him 
quick,  so's  to  get  it  in  before  he  hit  me.  Well,  I  was  aw- 
fully sorry,  and  I  said,  '  Why,  hold  on  a  minute,  Paul,  let 
me  tell  you — '  but  he  said  he  guessed  I'd  told  him  about 
enough,  and  before  I  could  open  my  mouth  he  dropped  off 
the  car.  We'd  got  in  as  far  as  Hayes  Avenue.  I  wanted 
to  explain,  you  know,  that  the  Frenchman  was  old  enough 
to  be  our  grandfather! " 

"  When  did  this  happen  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know ;  three  or  four  days  ago  —  why,  Thurs- 
day, it  must  have  been,  for  after  I  got  through  with  Briggs 
I  went  on  to  that — " 

"  And  this  is  Monday,"  said  Lydia ;  "  four  days." 

At  the  sight  of  her  sister-in-law's  troubled  eyes,  Madeleine 
was  again  overcome  with  facile  remorse.  She  clapped  her 
on  the  shoulder  hearteningly.  "  I'm  awfully  sorry,  Lyd, 
but  don't  you  go  being  afraid  of  Paul.  You're  too  gentle 
with  him,  anyhow.  A  married  woman  can't  afford  to  be. 
You  have  to  keep  the  men  in  their  places,  and  you  can't 
do  that  if  you  don't  knock  'em  the  side  of  the  head  once  in 
so  often.  It's  good  for  'em.  Honest!  And  about  this, 
don't  you  worry  your  head  a  minute.  Like  as  not  Paul's 
forgot  everything  about  it.  He'd  forget  anything,  you 
know  he  would,  if  an  interesting  job  came  up  in  business. 
And  if  he  ever  does  say  anything,  you  just  laugh  and  tell 
him  about  old  Thingama jig's  white  hair  and  pop  eyes,  and 
he'll  laugh  at  the  joke  on  himself." 

Lydia  drew  back  with  a  gesture  of  extreme  repugnance. 
"  Don't  talk  so  —  as  though  Paul  could  be  so  —  so  vulgar." 

Madeleine  laughed.  "  I  guess  you  won't  find  a  man  in 
this  world  that  isn't  *  vulgar '  that  way." 

"  Why,  I've  been  married  to  Paul  for  years  —  he  wouldn't 
think  I  —  no  matter  what  you  told  him,  he  couldn't  con- 
ceive of  my  — " 

Mrs.  Lowder,  as  usual,  found  her  brother's  wife  very 
diverting.  "  Of  your  doing  a  little  hand-holding  on  the 


Passions  Spin  the  Plot  321 

side?  Oh,  go  on!  Flirting's  no  crime!  And  you  did  — 
honest  to  goodness,  you  did,  turn  that  old  fellow's  head. 
You  ought  to  have  seen  the  way  he  looked  after  you." 

Lydia  cut  her  off  with  a  sharp  "  Oh,  don't!"  She  was 
now  sitting,  still  absently  grasping  the  dust-cloth. 

Madeleine  stood  for  a  moment  looking  at  her  in  a  medita- 
tive silence  rather  unusual  for  her.  "  Lydia,  you  don't 
look  a  bit  well,"  she  said  kindly.  "  Are  you  still  bothered 
with  that  nausea  ?  "  She  sat  down  by  her  sister-in-law  and 
put  her  arms  around  her  with  an  impulse  of  affectionate 
pity  that  almost  undid  Lydia,  always  so  helplessly  respon- 
sive to  tenderness.  "  What's  the  matter,  Lyd  ?  "  Madeleine 
went  on.  "Something's  not  going  just  right.  Are  you 
scared  about  this  second  confinement  ?  Is  Paul  being  horrid 
about  something?  You  just  take  my  advice,  and  if  you 
want  anything  out  of  him,  you  fight  for  it.  Nobody  gets 
anything  in  this  world  if  they  don't  put  up  a  fight  for  it." 

Lydia  began  to  say  that  there  were  some  things  which 
lost  their  value  if  obtained  by  fighting,  but  suddenly  she 
stopped  her  faltering  words,  drew  a  long  breath,  and  laid 
her  head  on  the  other's  shoulder.  More  than  wifely 
loyalty  kept  her  silent.  All  her  lifelong  experience  of 
Madeleine  crystallized  into  a  certainty  of  her  limitations,  and 
with  this  certainty  came  the  realization  that  Madeleine  stood 
for  all  the  circle  of  people  about  her.  Lydia  had  learned 
one  lesson  of  life.  She  knew,  she  now  knew  intensely, 
that  there  was  no  cry  by  which  she  could  reach  the  spiritual 
ear  of  the  warm  human  beings  so  close  to  her  in  the  body. 
She  knew  there  was  no  language  in  which  she  could  make 
intelligible  her  travail  of  soul.  In  the  moment  the  two 
women  sat  thus,  she  renounced,  once  for  all,  any  hope  of 
outside  aid  in  her  perplexities.  They  lay  between  herself 
and  Paul.  She  could  hope  to  find  expression  and  relief 
for  them  only  through  that  unique  privilege  of  marriage, 
utter  intimacy. 

She  kissed  her  husband's  sister  gently,  comforted  some- 
what by  the  mere  fact  of  her  presence,  "You're  good  to 


322  The  Squirrel-Cage 

bother  about  me,  Maddely,"  she  said,  using  a  pet  name  of 
their  common  childhood.  "  I  guess  I'm  not  feeling  very 
well  these  days.  But  that's  to  be  expected." 

"  Well,  I  tell  you  what,  I  wouldn't  be  so  patient  about  it 
as  you  are !  "  cried  the  other  wife.  "  It's  simply  horrid  to 
have  all  this  a  second  time,  and  Ariadne  so  little  yet.  It's 
mean  of  Paul." 

She  continued  voicing  an  indignant  sympathy  with  her 
usual  energy.  Lydia  looked  at  her  with  a  vague  smile. 
At  the  first  words  of  the  childless  woman,  she  had  been 
filled  with  the  mother-hunger  which  gave  savor  to  her  life 
during  those  days.  As  Madeleine  went  on,  she  sat  unheed- 
ing, lost  in  a  fond  impatience  to  feel  the  tiny  body  on  her 
knees,  the  downy  head  against  her  cheek.  Her  arms  ached 
with  emptiness.  For  an  instant,  so  vivid  was  her  sense  of  it, 
the  child  seemed  to  be  there,  in  her  arms.  She  felt  the  eager 
tug  of  the  soft  lips  at  her  breast.  She  looked  down  — 
"  Well,  anyhow,  you  poor,  dear  thing !  I  hope  you  will 
bottle-feed  this  one!  It  would  be  just  a  little  too  much  if 
they  made  you  nurse  it !  " 

Lydia  did  not  even  attempt  a  protest.  Her  submissive, 
entire  acceptance  of  spiritual  isolation  seemed  an  answer 
to  many  of  the  conflicting  impulses  which  had  hitherto  dis- 
tracted her.  She  wished  that  she  could  reassure  Madeleine 
by  telling  her  that  she  would  never  again  make  another 
"  odd  "  speech  to  her.  She  renounced  all  common  life  ex- 
cept the  childlike,  harmless,  animal-like  one  of  mutual  ma- 
terial wants,  and  this  renunciation  brought  her  already  a 
peace  which,  though  barren,  was  infinitely  calming  after  her 
former  struggling  uncertainties.  "  How  did  those  waists 
come  out  that  you  sent  to  the  cleaner's,  Madeleine?"  she 
asked,  in  a  bright,  natural  tone  of  interest.  "  I  hope  the 
blue  one  didn't  fade." 

Madeleine  reported  to  her  husband  that  Lydia  had  seemed 
in  one  of  her  queer  notional  moods  at  first,  but  cheered  up 
afterward  and  talked  more  "  like  folks,"  and  seemed  more 
like  herself  than  she  had  since  her  father  died.  They  had 
a  real  good  visit  together  she  said,  and  she  began  to  think 


Passions  Spin  the  Plot  323 

she  could  get  some  good  satisfaction  out  of  having  Lydia 
for  a  neighbor,  after  all. 

But  after  Lydia  was  alone,  there  sprang  upon  her  the 
terror  of  living  on  such  terms  with  Paul.  No,  no !  Never 
that!  It  would  be  dying  by  inches!  Beaten  back  to  this 
last  inner  stronghold  of  the  dismantled  castle  of  her  ideals 
of  life,  she  prepared  to  defend  it  with  the  energy  of  despera- 
tion. 

She  did  not  believe  Madeleine's  story,  or,  at  least,  not 
her  interpretation  of  Paul's  attitude,  but  she  felt  a  dreary 
chill  at  his  silence  toward  her.  It  seemed  to  her  that  their 
marriage  ought  to  have  brought  her  husband  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  have  in  all  their  relations  with  each  other  a 
perfect  openness.  She  resolved  that  she  would  begin  to 
help  him  to  that  impulse  that  very  day;  now,  at  once. 

When  Paul  came  in,  he  seemed  abstracted,  and  went 
directly  upstairs  to  pack  a  satchel,  stating  with  his  usual  ab- 
sence of  explanatory  comment  that  he  was  called  to  Evans- 
ton  on  business.  He  ate  his  dinner  rather  silently,  glanc- 
ing furtively  at  the  paper.  Only  at  the  breakfast-table  — 
such  was  their  convention  —  did  he  allow  himself  to  be- 
come absorbed  in  the  news. 

Ariadne  prattled  to  her  mother  of  her  adventures  in  the 
kitchen,  where  Patsy  O'Hern,  'Stashie's  cousin  Patsy,  was 
visiting  her,  and  he  made  Ariadne  a  "  horse  out  of  a  potato 
and  toothpicks  for  legs,  and  a  little  wagon  out  of  a  match- 
box, and  a  paper  doll  to  sit  and  drive,  and  Patsy  was 
perfectly  loverly,  anyhow,  and  he  was  making  such  a  lot 
of  money  every  day,  and,  oh,  he  made  the  wheels  out  of 
potato,  too,  as  round  as  could  be  he  cut  it,  and  he  gave  every 
cent  of  it  to  his  grandmother  and  she  loved  him  as  much  as 
she  did  'Stashie,  and  wasn't  it  good  to  have  'Stashie  back, 
and—" 

Paul  frowned  silently  over  his  pie. 

"  Come,  dear ;  it's  seven  o'clock  and  bedtime,"  said  Lydia, 
leading  the  little  girl  away. 

When  she  came  back  she  noticed  by  the  clock  that  she 
had  been  gone  almost  half  an  hour.  She  was  surprised  to 


324  The  Squirrel-Cage 

see  Paul  still  in  the  dining-room,  as  though  he  had  not 
stirred  since  she  left  him.  He  was  sitting  in  an  attitude  of 
moody  idleness,  singular  with  him,  his  elbows  on  the  table, 
his  chin  in  his  hands.  He  looked  desperately,  tragically 
tired. 

No  inward  monitor  gave  any  warning  to  Lydia  of  what  the 
next  few  moments  were  to  be  in  her  life.  She  crossed  the 
room  quickly  to  her  husband,  feeling  a  great  longing  to 
be  close  to  him. 

As  she  did  so,  a  rattling  clatter  of  tin  was  heard  from 
the  kitchen,  followed  by  a  shout  of  roaring  laughter. 
Something  in  Paul's  tense  face  snapped.  He  started  up, 
overturning  his  chair.  "  Oh,  damn  that  idiot !  "  he  cried. 

The  door  opened  behind  them.  'Stashie  stood  there,  her 
red  hair  hidden  in  a  mass  of  soft  dough  that  was  beginning 
to  ooze  down  over  her  perspiring,  laughing  face.  "  I  just 
wanted  to  show  you  what  a  comycal  thing  happened,  Mis' 
Hollister,"  she  began,  in  her  familiar  way.  "  'Twould 
make  a  pig  laugh,  now!  I'd  begun  my  bread  dough,  and 
put  it  on  a  shelf,  an' — " 

"  Oh,  get  out  of  here ! "  Paul  yelled  at  her  furiously. 
"  And  less  noise  out  of  you  in  the  kitchen ! " 

He  slammed  the  door  shut  on  her  retreat,  and  turned  to 
Lydia  with  a  face  she  did  not  recognize.  The  room  grew 
black  before  her  eyes. 

"  I  suppose  you  still  prefer  that  dirty  Irish  slut  to  my 
wishes,"  he  said. 

His  words,  his  accent,  the  quality  of  his  voice,  were  the 
zigzag  of  lightning  to  his  wife.  The  storm  burst  over  her 
head  like  thunder. 

She  was  amazed  to  feel  a  great  wave  of  anger  surge  up 
in  her,  responsive  to  his  own.  She  cried,  in  outraged  re- 
sentment at  his  injustice :  "  You  know  very  well  — "  and 
stopped,  horrified  at  the  passion  which  rose  clamoring  to 
her  lips. 

"  I  know  very  well  that  my  home  is  the  last  place  where 
my  wishes  are  consulted,"  said  Paul,  catching  her  up. 


Passions  Spin  the  Plot  325 

"  I  will  dismiss  'Stashie  to-morrow,"  returned  Lydia  with 
a  bitter,  proud  brevity. 

"  You're  rather  slow  to  take  a  hint.  How  long  has  she 
been  with  us?  As  for  your  saying  that  you  can't  get  any- 
one else,  and  can't  keep  house  decently  as  other  decent 
people  do,  there  isn't  a  word  of  truth  in  it!  You  can  do 
whatever  you  care  enough  about  to  try  to  do.  You  didn't 
make  an  incompetent  mess  of  taking  care  of  the  baby  as 
you  did  out  of  that  disgusting  dinner  party ! " 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  spoken  outright  to  her 
of  that  experience.  Lydia  was  transfixed  to  hear  the  poison 
of  the  memory  as  fresh  in  his  voice  as  though  it  had  hap- 
pened yesterday. 

"  I'm  simply  not  worth  putting  yourself  out  for,"  went  on 
Paul,  turning  away  and  picking  up  his  overcoat.  "  I'm  only 
a  common,  ignorant,  materialistic  beast  of  an  American 
husband !  "  He  added  in  an  insulting  tone :  "  I  suppose 
you'd  like  two  husbands;  one  to  earn  your  living  for  you, 
and  one  to  talk  to  about  your  soul  and  to  exchange  near- 
culture  with ! " 

He  had  not  looked  at  Lydia  as  he  poured  out  this  sud- 
den flood  of  acrimony,  but  at  her  quick,  fierce  reply,  he 
faced  her. 

"  I'd  like  one?  husband,"  she  cried  white  with  indignation. 

"  And  I'd  like  a  wife ! "  Paul  flashed  back  at  her  hotly. 
"  A  wife  that'd  be  a  help  and  not  a  hindrance  to  everything 
I  want  to  do  —  a  wife  that'd  be  loyal  to  me  behind  my  back, 
and  not  listen  to  sneaking  foreigners  telling  her  that  she's 
a  misunderstood  martyr  —  martyr!"  His  sense  of  injury 
exalted  him.  "  Yes ;  all  you  American  wives  are  martyrs, 
all  right,  I  must  say.  While  your  husbands  are  working 
like  dogs  to  make  you  money,  you're  sitting  around  with 
nothing  to  do  but  drink  tea  and  listen  to  a  foreigner  who 
tells  you  —  in  summer  time,  while  you're  enjoying  the 
cool  breeze  out  here  on  a  —  maybe  you  think  a  dynamo- 
room's  a  funny  place  to  be,  with  the  thermometer  standing 
at  —  what  am  I  doing  when  I'm  away  from  you  ?  Enjoy- 


326  The  Squirrel-Cage 

ing  myself,  no  doubt.  Maybe  you  think  it's  enjoyment  to 
travel  all  night  on  a  —  maybe  you  think  it's  nice  to  make 
yourself  conspicuous  with  another  man  that's  been  abusing 
your  — " 

Lydia  could  hear  no  more  for  a  loud  roaring  in  her  ears. 
She  knew  then  the  blackest  moment  of  her  life  —  a  sicken- 
ing scorn  for  the  man  before  her.  Madeleine  had  been 
right,  then.  They  were  of  the  same  blood.  His  sister 
knew  him  better  than  —  she,  his  wife,  his  wedded  wife,  was 
not  to  be  spared  the  pollution  of  having  her  husband  — 

"  I  didn't  take  any  stock  in  Madeleine's  nasty  insinua- 
tions about  your  flirting  with  him,  of  course,  but  it  showed 
me  what  you've  been  thinking  about  me  all  this  time  I've 
been  working  like  a — " 

Lydia  drew  the  first  conscious  breath  since  the  beginning 
of  this  nightmare.  The  earth  was  still  under  her  feet, 
struck  down  to  it  though  she  was.  The  roaring  in  her  ears 
stopped.  She  heard  Paul  say : 

"  Maybe  you  think  I'm  made  of  iron !  I  tell  you  I'm 
right  on  my  nerves  every  minute!  Dr.  Melton  threatens 
me  with  a  breakdown  every  time  I  see  him !  "  There  was 
a  sort  of  angry  pride  in  this  statement.  "  I  can't  sleep ! 
I'm  doing  ten  men's  work !  And  what  do  I  get  from  you  ? 
Any  rest?  Any  quiet?  Why,  these  first  years,  when  you 
might  have  made  things  easier  for  me  by  taking  all  other 
cares  off  my  mind  and  leaving  me  free  for  business  — 
they've  actually  been  harder  because  of  you !  " 

He  thrust  his  arms  into  his  overcoat  and  caught  up  his 
satchel.  "  I  haven't  wanted  anything  so  hard  to  give ! 
Good  Lord !  All  I  asked  for  was  a  well-kept  house  where 
I  could  invite  my  friends  without  being  ashamed  of  it,  and 
to  live  like  other  decent  people ! "  He  moved  to  the  door, 
and  put  one  hand,  one  strong,  thin  hand,  on  the  knob. 
With  the  unearthly  clearness  of  one  in  a  terrible  accident, 
Lydia  noticed  every  detail  of  his  appearance.  He  was 
flushed,  a  purple,  congested  color,  singularly  unlike  his  usual 
indoor  pallor;  hurried  pulses  throbbed  visibly,  almost  audi- 
fcj.v,  at  his  temples ;  one  eyelid  twitched  rapidly  and  steadily, 


Passions  Spin  the  Plot  327 

like  a  clock  ticking.  With  a  gesture  as  automatic  as  draw- 
ing breath,  he  jerked  out  his  watch  and  looked  at  it,  appar- 
ently to  make  sure  of  catching  his  trolley,  although  his 
valedictory  was  poured  out  with  such  a  passionate  un- 
premeditation  that  the  action  must  have  been  involuntary 
and  unconscious.  "But  I  don't  even  ask  that  now  —  since 
it  doesn't  suit  you  to  bother  to  give  it!  All  I  ask  now 
ought  to  be  easy  enough  for  any  woman  to  do  —  not  to 
bother  me !  Leave  me  alone !  Keep  your  everlasting  stew- 
ing and  fussing  and  hysterical  putting-on  to  yourself  1  I 
don't  bother  you  with  my  affairs  —  I  haven't,  and  I  never 
will  —  why,  for  God's  sake,  can't  you  —  Some  men  marry 
women  who  help  them,  and  pull  with  them  loyally,  instead  of 
pulling  the  other  way  all  the  time!  Such  a  woman  would 
have  made  me  a  thousand  times  more  successful  than  I  — " 

Lydia  broke  in  with  a  loud  voice  of  anguished  question- 
ing :  "  Do  they  make  them  better  men  ?  "  she  asked  pierc- 
ingly. 

Her  husband  looked  at  her  over  his  shoulder.  "  Oh,  you 
and  your  goody-goody  cant ! "  he  said,  and  going  out  with- 
out further  speech,  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

The  clock  struck  the  half -hour.  Their  conversation  had 
lasted  less  than  five  minutes. 


•• 


CHAPTER  XXX 
TRIBUTE  TO  THE  MINOTAUR 

THE  scene  of  Paul's  departure  was  no  worse  than  many 
an  outbreak  in  the  ordinary  married  life  of  ordinary,  quick- 
tempered, over-tired  married  people,  for  whom  an  open 
quarrel  brings  relief  like  the  clearing  of  the  air  after  an 
electric  storm,  but  to  Lydia  it  was  no  such  surface  mani- 
festation of  nerves.  The  impulse  that  had  made  them  both 
break  out  into  the  cruel  words  came  from  some  long-gath- 
ering bitterness,  the  very  existence  of  which  was  like  the 
end  of  all  things  to  her.  A  single  flash  of  lightning  had 
showed  her  to  the  edge  of  what  a  terrifying  precipice  they 
had  strayed,  and  then  had  left  her  in  darkness. 

That  was  how  it  seemed  to  her ;  she  was  in  the  most  im- 
penetrable blackness,  though  the  little  girl  played  on  be- 
side her  with  a  child's  cheerful  blindness  to  its  elder's 
emotion,  and  Anastasia  detected  nothing  but  that  her  mis- 
tress had  a  better  color  than  before  and  stepped  about  quite 
briskly. 

It  was  the  restless  activity  of  a  tortured  animal  which 
drove  Lydia  from  one  household  task  to  another,  hurrying 
her  into  a  trembling  physical  exhaustion,  which,  however, 
brought  with  it  no  instant's  cessation  of  the  tumult  in  her 
heart.  The  night  after  Paul's  departure  was  like  a  black 
eternity  to  her  turning  wildly  on  her  bed,  or  rising  to  walk 
as  wildly  about  the  silent  house.  "  But  I  can't  stand  this ! 
—  to  hate  and  be  hated!  I  can  not  bear  it!  I  must  do 
something  —  but  what  ?  but  what  ?  "  Once  she  feared  she 
had  screamed  out  these  ever-recurring  words,  so  audibly 
like  a  cry  of  agony  did  they  ring  in  her  ears ;  but,  forcing 

328 


Tribute  to  the  Minotaur  329 

herself  to  an  instant's  immobility,  she  heard  Ariadne's  light, 
regular  breathing  continue  undisturbed. 

She  sat  down  on  her  bed  and  told  herself  that  she  would 
go  out  of  her  mind  if  she  could  not  think  something  dif- 
ferent from  this  chaos  of  angry  misery.  She  fell  on  her 
knees,  she  sent  her  soul  out  in  a  supreme  appeal  for  help 
and,  still  kneeling,  she  felt  the  intolerable  tension  within  her 
loosen.  She  began  to  cry  softly.  The  unnatural  strength 
which  had  sustained  her  gave  way;  she  sank  together  in  a 
heap,  her  head  leaning  against  the  bed,  her  arms  thrown  out 
across  it.  Here  Anastasia  found  her  the  next  morning,  ap- 
parently asleep,  although  upon  being  called  she  seemed  to 
come  to  herself  from  a  deeper  unconsciousness. 

Whatever  it  had  been,  the  hour  or  two  of  oblivion  that 
lay  back  of  her  was  like  a  wall  between  her  soul  and  the 
worst  phase  of  her  suffering.  In  answer  to  her  cry  for  help, 
perhaps  an  appeal  to  the  best  in  her  own  nature,  there  had 
come  a  cessation  of  what  was  to  her  the  only  unbearable 
pain  —  the  bitter,  blaming  anger  which  had  flared  up  in  her, 
answering  her  husband's  anger  like  the  reflection  of  a 
torch  in  a  mirror.  In  that  silent  hour  before  dawn,  she  had 
seen  Paul  suddenly  as  a  victim  to  forces  outside  himself 
quite  as  much  as  she  was;  poor,  tired  Paul,  with  his  hag- 
gard face,  flushed  with  a  wrath  that  was  not  his  own,  but 
an  involuntary  expression  of  suffering,  the  scream  of  a 
man  caught  in  the  cogs  of  a  great  machine.  She  hung  be- 
fore her  mental  vision  now,  constantly,  the  picture  of  Paul 
as  she  had  seen  him  when  she  came  downstairs;  Paul 
leaning  his  chin  on  his  hands,  his  jaded  face  white  and 
drawn  under  his  thinning,  graying  hair. 

The  alleviation  which  came  through  this  conception  of 
her  husband  was  tempered  by  the  final  disappearance  of  her 
old  feeling  that  Paul  was  stronger,  clearer-headed,  than  she, 
and  that  if  she  could  but  once  make  him  stop  and  under- 
stand the  forces  in  their  life  which  she  feared,  he  could 
conquer  them  as  easily  as  he  conquered  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  their  material  success.  She  now  felt  that  he  was  not  even 
as  strong  as  she,  since  he  could  not  get  even  her  faint 


330  The  Squirrel-Cage 

glimpse  of  their  common  enemy,  this  Minotaur  of  futile 
materialism  which  had  devoured  the  young  years  of  their 
marriage  and  was  now  threatening  to  destroy  the  possibility 
of  a  great,  strongly-rooted  affection  which  had  lain  so 
clearly  before  them.  She  felt  staggered  by  the  responsibil- 
ity of  having  to  be  strong  enough  for  two ;  and  as  another 
day  wore  on  this  new  preoccupation  became  almost  as  ab- 
sorbing an  obsession  as  her  anger  of  the  night  before. 

But  this  was  steadying  in  the  very  velocity  with  which 
her  mind  swept  around  the  circle  of  possible  courses  of  ac- 
tion. Her  thoughts  hummed  with  a  steady,  dizzy  speed 
around  and  around  the  central  idea  that  something  must  be 
done  and  that  she  was  now  the  only  one  to  do  it.  'Stashie 
thought  to  herself  that  she  had  never  seen  Mrs.  Hollister 
look  so  well,  her  eyes  were  so  bright,  her  cheeks  so  pink. 

Lydia  had  set  herself  the  task  of  getting  down  and  sort- 
ing the  curtains  in  the  house,  preparatory  to  sending  them 
to  the  cleaner.  Above  the  piles  of  dingy  drapery,  her  face 
shone,  as  'Stashie  had  noted,  with  a  strange,  feverish  bright- 
ness. Her  knees  shook  under  her,  but  she  walked  about 
quickly.  Ariadne  ran  in  and  out  of  the  house,  chirping 
away  to  her  mother  of  various  wonderful  discoveries  in  the 
world  of  outdoors.  Lydia  heard  her  as  from  a  distance, 
although  she  gave  relevant  answers  to  the  child's  talk. 

"  It  has  come  down,"  she  was  saying  to  herself,  "  to  a 
life-and-death  struggle.  It  isn't  a  question  now  of  how 
much  of  the  best  in  Paul,  in  me,  in  our  life,  we  can  save.  It's! 
whether  we  can  save  any !  How  dirty  lace  curtains  get !  It 
must  be  the  soft  coal  —  yes,  it  is  a  life  and  death  struggle 
—  I  must  see  to  Ariadne's  underwear.  It  is  too  warm  for 
these  sunny  days. —  Oh!  Oh!  Paul  and  I  have  quarreled! 
And  what  about!  About  such  sickeningly  trivial  things  — 
how  badly  'Stashie  dusts!  There  are  rolls  of  dust  under 
the  piano  —  but  I  thought  people  only  quarreled  —  quar- 
reled terribly  —  over  great  things:  unfaithfulness,  cruelty, 
differences  in  religion !  Oh,  if  I  only  now  had  a  religion,  a 
religion  which  would  —  Yes,  Ariadne ;  but  only  to  the  edge 
of  the  driveway  and  back.  How  muddy  the  driveway  is! 


Tribute  to  tHe  Minotaur  331 

Paul  said  it  should  have  more  gravel  —  Paul!  How  can  he 
come  back  to  me  after  such  —  Madeleine  says  married  peo- 
ple always  quarrel  —  how  can  they  look  into  each  other's 
eyes  again !  We  must  escape  that  sort  of  life !  We  must ! 
We  must!" 

The  thought  of  what  she  had  hoped  from  her  marriage 
and  of  what  she  had,  filled  her  with  the  most  passionate 
self-reproach.  It  must  be  at  least  half  her  fault,  since  she 
and  Paul  made  up  but  one  whole.  As  she  helped  'Stashie 
sort  the  dingy  curtains,  she  was  saying  over  and  over  to 
herself  that  she  was  responsible,  responsible  as  much  as 
for  Ariadne's  health.  This  conception  so  possessed  her  now 
that  she  felt  herself  able  to  accomplish  anything,  even  the 
miracle  needed. 

To  have  achieved  this  state  of  passionate  resolution  gave 
her  for  a  moment  the  sense  of  having  started  upon  the 
straight  road  to  escape  from  her  nightmare;  and  for  the 
first  time  since  the  door  had  slammed  behind  Paul  she  drew  a 
long  breath  and  was  able  to  give  more  than  a  blind  gaze 
to  the  world  about  her. 

She  noticed  that,  though  it  was  after  twelve  o'clock, 
Ariadne  had  not  been  told  to  come  to  luncheon.  When  the 
little  girl  came  running  at  her  mother's  call,  her  vivid  face 
flushed  with  happy  play,  Lydia  knew  a  throb  of  that  ex- 
quisite, unreasoning  parent's  joy,  lying  too  near  the  very 
springs  of  life  for  any  sickness  of  the  spirit  to  affect  it. 
Like  everything  else,  however,  the  touch  of  the  child's  tight- 
clinging  arms  about  her  neck  brought  her  back  to  her  pre- 
occupation. Ariadne  must  not  be  allowed  to  grow  up  to 
such  a  regret  as  she  felt,  that  she  had  never  known  her 
father.  There  were  moments,  she  saw  them  clearly,  when 
Paul  realized  with  difficulty  the  fact  of  his  daughter's  ex- 
istence, and  he  never  realized  it  as  a  fact  involving  any 
need  for  a  new  attitude  on  his  part. 

"When  is  Daddy  coming  back  to  us  vis  time?"  asked 
Ariadne  over  her  egg. 

Anastasia  paused  furtively  at  the  door.  She  had  had  a 
divination  of  trouble  in  the  last  talk  between  her  master  and 


332  The  Squirrel-Cage 

mistress.  The  door  had  slammed.  Mr.  Hollister  had  not 
called  for  the  tie  she  was  pressing  for  him  in  the  kitchen  — 
'Stashie  told  herself  fiercely  that  "  killing  wud  be  too  good 
for  her,  makin'  trouble  like  the  divil's  own !  "  She  listened 
anxious  for  Lydia's  answer. 

"  Daddy's  coming  back  to  us  as  soon  as  his  business  is 
done,"  said  Paul's  wife.  At  the  turn  of  her  phrase  she 
turned  cold,  and  added  with  a  quick  vehemence :  "  No,  no ! 
before  that!  Long  before  that!"  She  went  on,  to  cover 
her  agitation  and  get  the  maid  out  of  the  room,  "  Stashie, 
get  the  baby  a  glass  of  milk." 

"  The  front  door  bell's  ringin',"  said  'Stashie,  departing 
in  that  direction,  with  the  assurance  of  her  own  ability  to 
choose  the  proper  task  for  herself,  so  exasperating  to  her 
master. 

She  came  back  bringing  Miss  Burgess  in  her  wake,  Miss 
Burgess  apologizing  for  "  coming  right  in,  that  way,"  ex- 
claiming effusively  at  the  pretty  picture  made  by  mother  and 
child, — "  She  must  be  such  company  for  you,  Miss  Lydia  " 
—  Miss  Burgess,  deferential,  sure  of  her  own  position  and 
her  hostess',  and  determinedly  pleased  with  the  general 
state  of  things.  Lydia  repressed  a  sigh  of  impatience,  but, 
noting  the  tired  lines  in  the  little  woman's  face,  told  Anas- 
tasia  to  make  another  cup  of  tea  for  Miss  Burgess  and 
cook  her  an  egg. 

"  Oh,  delighted,  I'm  sure !  Quite  an  honor  to  have  the 
same  lunch  with  little  Miss  Hollister." 

Ariadne  did  not  smile  at  this  remark,  though  from  the 
speaker's  accent  it  was  meant  as  a  pleasantry. 

Miss  Burgess  cast  about  in  her  mind  for  another  bit  of 
suitable  badinage,  but  finding  none,  she  began  at  once  on 
the  object  of  her  visit. 

"  Now,  my  dear,  I  want  you  to  listen  to  all  I  have  to  say 
before  you  make  one  objection.  It's  an  idea  of  my  very 
own.  You'll  let  me  get  through  without  interruption  ?  " 

"  Yes,  oh,  yes,"  murmured  Lydia,  lifting  Ariadne  down 
from  her  high-chair  and  untying  the  napkin  from  about  her 
thin  little  neck. 


Tribute  to  the  Minotaur  333 

The  introduction  of  a  new  element  in  her  surroundings 
had  for  a  moment  broken  the  thread  of  her  exalted  reso- 
lutions. She  wondered  with  a  sore  heart,  as  though  it  had 
been  a  common  lovers'  quarrel,  how  she  and  Paul  could 
ever  get  over  the  first  sight  of  each  other  again.  She  was 
wondering  how,  with  the  most  passionate  resolve  in  the 
world,  she  could  do  anything  at  all  under  the  leaden  gar- 
ment of  physical  fatigue  which  would  weigh  her  down  in 
the  months  to  come. 

Miss  Burgess  began  in  her  best  style,  which  she  so  evi- 
dently considered  very  good  indeed,  that  she  could  not 
doubt  Lydia's  attention.  It  was  all  about  a  home  for  work- 
ing-women she  explained;  a  new  charity  which  had  come 
from  the  East,  had  caught  on  like  anything  among  the  Smart 
Set  of  Columbus,  and  was  about  to  be  introduced  into  End- 
bury.  The  most  exclusive  young  people  in  Columbus  — 
the  East  End  Set  (Miss  Burgess  had  a  genius  for  achieving 
oral  capitalization)  gave  a  parlor  play  for  the  first  benefit 
there,  in  one  of  the  Old  Broad  Street  Homes,  and  they  were 
willing  to  repeat  it  in  Endbury  to  introduce  it  there.  A 
Perfectly  splendid  crowd  was  sure  to  come,  tickets  could 
be  Any  Price,  and  the  hostess  who  lent  her  house  to  it 
could  have  the  glory  of  a  most  unique  affair.  Mrs.  Low- 
der  would  be  overwhelmed  with  delight  to  have  the  pick  of 
the  Society  of  the  Capital  at  her  house,  but  Miss  Burgess 
had  thought  it  such  an  opportunity  for  Miss  Lydia  to  come 
out  of  mourning  with,  since  it  was  for  charity.  She  mo- 
tioned Lydia,  about  to  speak,  sternly  to  silence :  "  You 
said  you  wouldn't  interrupt!  And  you  haven't  let  me  say 
half  yet!  That's  your  side  of  it  —  the  side  your  dear 
mother  would  think  of  if  she  were  only  here;  but  there's 
another  side  that  you  can't,  you  oughtn't  to  resist ! "  She 
finished  her  tea  with  a  hasty  swallow  and,  going  around  the 
table,  sat  down  by  Lydia,  laying  her  hand  impressively  on 
the  young  matron's  slim  arm.  "  You're  the  sweetest  thing 
in  the  world,  of  course,  but,  like  other  people  of  your 
fortunate  class,  you  can't  realize  how  perfectly  awfully 
lucky  you  are,  nor  how  unlucky  poor  people  are!  Of 


334  The  Squirrel-Cage 

course  it  stands  to  reason  that  you  can't  even  imagine  the 
life  of  a  working-woman  —  you,  a  woman  of  entire  leisure, 
with  every  want  supplied  before  you  speak  of  it  by  a  hus- 
band who  adores  you!  Why,  Miss  Lydia,  to  give  you 
some  idea  let  me  tell  you  just  one  little  thing.  Lots  and 
lots  of  the  working-women  of  Endbury  live  with  their 
families  in  two  or  three  rooms  right  on  that  horrid  Main' 
Street  near  their  work  because  they  can't  afford  car- 
fares!" 

Lydia  looked  at  her  without  speaking.  She  remembered 
her  futile,  desperate,  foolish  proposition  to  Paul  to  get  more 
time  together  by  living  near  his  work.  With  a  roar,  the 
flood  of  her  bewilderment,  diverted  for  a  time,  broke  over 
her  again.  She  braced  herself  against  it.  Through  her 
companion's  dimly-heard  exhortations  that,  from  her  high 
heaven  of  self-indulgence,  she  stoop  to  lend  a  hand  to  her 
less  favored  sisters,  she  repeated  to  herself,  clinging  to 
the  phrase  as  though  it  were  a  magic  formula :  "  If  I  can 
only  wish  hard  enough  to  make  things  better,  nothing  can 
prevent  me." 

The  telephone  bell  rang,  and  Miss  Burgess  interrupted 
herself  to  say:  "It's  for  me,  I  know.  I  told  them  at  the 
office  to  call  me  up  here."  She  got  herself  out  of  the 
room  in  her  busy  way,  her  voice  soon  coming  in  a  faint 
murmur  from  the  far  end  of  the  hall. 

Lydia  walked  to  the  window  to  call  Ariadne  in  to  put 
on  a  wrap,  the  thought  and  action  automatic.  She  had 
buttoned  the  garment  about  the  child's  slender  body  before 
she  responded  again  to  the  little  living  presence.  Then 
she  took  her  in  a  close  embrace.  With  the  child's  breath 
on  her  face,  with  her  curls  exhaling  the  fresh  outdoor  air, 
there  came  to  pass  for  poor  Lydia  one  of  the  strange, 
happy  mysteries  of  the  contradictory  tangle  that  is  human 
nature.  She  had  felt  it  often  with  Paul  after  one  of  their 
long  separations  —  how  mere  physical  presence  can  some- 
times bring  a  consolation  to  the  distressed  spirit. 

As  she  held  her  child  to  her  heart,  things  seemed  for  a 
moment  quite  plain  and  possible.  Why,  Paul  was  Ariadne's 


Tribute  to  tKe  Minotaur  335 

father!  As  soon  as  he  was  with  her  again,  all  would  be 
well.  It  must  be.  Nothing  could  separate  her  from  the 
father  of  her  baby !  They  were  one  flesh  now.  There  was 
still  all  their  lifetime  to  grow  to  be  one  in  spirit.  She 
had  only  to  try  harder.  They  had  simply  started  on  a 
false  track.  They  were  so  young.  So  many  years  lay 
before  them.  There  was  plenty  of  time  to  turn  back  and 
start  all  over  again  —  there  was  plenty  of  time  to  — 

"  Oh,  my  dear !  my  dear ! "  Miss  Burgess  faltered  weakly 
into  the  room  and  sank  upon  a  chair. 

Lydia  sprang  up,  Ariadne  still  in  her  arms,  and  faced 
her  for  a  long  silent  instant,  searching  her  face  with  pas- 
sion. Then  she  set  the  little  girl  down  gently.  "  Run 
out  and  play,  dear,"  she  said,  and  until  the  door  had  shut 
on  the  child  she  did  not  stir.  Her  hand  at  her  throat, 
"Well?"  she  asked. 

Miss  Burgess  began  to  cry  into  her  handkerchief. 

"  It's  Paul !  "  said  Lydia  with  certainty.     She  sat  down. 

The  weeping  woman  nodded. 

"  He  has  left  me,"  Lydia  continued  in  the  same  dry  tone 
of  affirmation.  "  I  know.  We  had  a  quarrel,  and  he  has 
left  me." 

Miss  Burgess  looked  up,  quite  wild  with  surprise,  her 
sobs  cut  short,  her  face  twisted.  "  Oh,  no  —  no  —  no !  " 
she  cried,  running  across  the  room  and  putting  her  arms 
about  the  other.  "  No ;  it's  not  that !  He  —  he  —  the 
man  who  telephoned  said  they  were  testing  the  dynamo, 
and  your  husband  insisted  on  — " 

Lydia  came  to  life  like  a  swimmer  emerging  into  the 
air  after  a  long  dive.  "  Oh,  he's  hurt !  He's  hurt !  "  she 
cried,  bounding  to  her  feet.  "  I  must  go  to  him.  I  must 
go  to  him !  " 

She  tore  herself  away  from  the  reporter  and  darted 
toward  the  door.  The  older  woman  ran  after  her,  stum- 
bling, sobbing,  putting  hands  of  imploring  pity  on  her. 

Although  no  word  was  spoken,  Lydia  suddenly  screamed 
out  as  though  she  had  been  stabbed.  "NO!  Not  that!" 
she  cried 


336  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  Yes,  yes,  my  poor  darling ! "  said  the  other. 

Lydia  turned  slowly  around.  "  Then  it  is  too  late.  We 
never  can  do  better,"  she  said. 

Miss  Burgess  tried  helplessly  to  unburden  her  kind 
heart  of  its  aching  sympathy.  "  You  spoke  of  a  little  dis- 
agreement, but,  oh,  my  dear,  don't  let  that  be  the  last 
thought.  Think  of  the  years  of  perfect  love  and  knowledge 
you  had  together." 

"  We  never  knew  each  other,"  said  Lydia.  Her  voice 
did  not  tremble. 

"Oh,  don't!  don't!"  pleaded  Miss  Burgess,  alarmed. 
"  You  mustn't  let  it  unhinge  you  so !  Such  a  perfect  mar- 
riage !  " 

"  We  were  never  married,"  said  Lydia.  She  leaned 
against  the  wall  and  closed  her  eyes. 

"  Oh,  help !  Someone ! "  called  the  poor  reporter. 
"  Somebody  come  quick." 

Lydia  opened  her  eyes.  She  spoke  still  in  a  low,  steady 
voice,  but  in  it  now  was  a  shocking  quality  from  which  the 
other  shrank  back  terrified.  "/  could  have  loved  him!" 
she  said. 

"  Quick  —  'Stashie  —  hurry  —  keep  the  baby  out  of  the 
room !  Your  mistress  ha§  fainted !  " 


BOOK  IV 

"BUT  IT  IS  NOT  TOO  LATE  FOR 
ARIADNE" 

CHAPTER  XXXI 
PROTECTION  FROM  THE  MINOTAUR 

DR.  MELTON  burst  open  the  door  of  the  house  in  the 
Black  Rock  woods,  and  running  to  the  owner  caught  hold 
of  his  bared  brown  arm.  "  Paul  Hollister  is  dead ! "  he 
cried. 

"  I  read  the  papers,"  said  Rankin,  looking  down  at  him 
without  stirring. 

"  The  damn  fool !  "  cried  the  doctor,  his  face  working. 
"  Just  now !  There's  another  child  expected." 

Rankin's  inscrutable  gravity  did  not  waver  at  this  speech. 
He  felt  the  hand  that  rested  on  his  arm  tremble,  and  he 
was  thinking,  as  Judge  Emery  had  so  often  thought,  that 
perhaps  one  reason  for  the  doctor's  success  in  treating 
women  was  a  certain  community  of  too-responsive  nerves. 
"  You  can  hardly  blame  a  man  because  the  date  of  his 
death  is  inconvenient,"  he  said  reasonably.  He  drew  up 
one  of  his  deep  chairs  and  pushed  the  doctor  into  it. 
"  Sit  down  and  get  your  breath.  You  look  sick.  How 
do  you  happen  to  be  up  so  early?  It's  hardly  daylight." 

"  Up !  You  don't  suppose  I've  been  to  bed !  Lydia  — " 
His  voice  halted. 

Rankin's  quiet  face  stirred.    "  She  feels  it  —  terribly  ?  " 

"  I  can't  make  her  out !  I  can't  make  her  out !  "  The 
doctor  flung  this  confession  of  failure  before  him  excitedly. 
"  I  don't  know  what's  in  her  mind,  but  she's  evidently 

337 


338  The  Squirrel-Cage 

dangerously   near  —  women   in   her   condition  never   have 
a  very  settled  mental  poise,  anyhow,  and  this  sudden  shock 

—  they  telephoned  it  —  and  there  was  nobody  there  but 
that  fool  Flora—" 

"  Do  you  mean  that  Mrs.  Hollister  is  out  of  her  mind  ?  " 
asked  Rankin  squarely. 

"  I  don't  know !  I  don't  know,  I  tell  you !  She  says 
strange  things  —  strange  things.  When  I  got  there  yester- 
day afternoon,  she  was  holding  Ariadne  —  you  knew,  didn't 
you?  that  she  called  their  little  girl  Ariadne — ?" 

Rankin  sat  down,  white  to  the  lips.  "  No,"  he  said,  "  I 
didn't  know  that.  I  never  heard  anything  about  —  about 
her  married  life." 

"  Well,  she  was  holding  Ariadne  as  close  as  though  she 
was  expecting  kidnapers.  I  came  in  and  she  looked  up  — 
God !  Rankin,  with  what  a  face  of  fear !  It  wasn't  grief. 
It  was  terror  [  She  said :  '  I  must  save  the  children  —  I 
mustn't  let  it  get  the  children,  too.'  I  asked  her  what  she 
meant,  and  she  went  on  in  a  whisper  that  fairly  turned 
the  blood  backward  in  my  veins,  '  The  Minotaur !  He  got 
Paul  —  I  must  hide  the  children  from  him ! '  And  that's 
all  she  would  say.  I  managed  to  put  Ariadne  to  bed, 
though  Lydia  screamed  at  the  idea  of  having  her  out  of 
her  sight,  and  I  gave  Lydia  a  bromide  and  made  her  lie 
down.  I  think  she  knew  me  —  oh,  yes,  I'm  sure  she  did 

—  why,  she  seemed  like  herself  in  every  way  but  that  one 

—  but  all  night  long  she  has  wakened  at  intervals  with  a 
shriek  and   would   not  be   quieted   until   she   had   felt  of 
Ariadne.     Nothing  I  said  has  had  the  slightest  effect.     I'm 
at   my   wits'   end !     If   she   doesn't   get   quieted   soon  —  I 
finally  gave  her  an  opiate  —  enough  to  drug  her  senseless 
for  a  time  —  I   don't  know  what  to   do !     I   don't  know 
what  to  do ! "    He  dropped  his  head  into  his  hands  and 
sat  silent,  shivering. 

Rankin  was  looking  at  him,  motionless,  his  powerful 
hands  gripping  his  knees.  He  did  not  seem  to  breathe  at 
all. 

The  doctor  sprang  up  and  began  to  trot  about,  kicking 


Protection  from  the  Minotaur          339 

at  the  legs  of  the  furniture  and  biting  his  nails.  "Yes,  I 
can,  too !  I  do  blame  him  for  the  date  of  his  death ! " 
He  went  back  angrily  to  an  earlier  remark.  "  Hollister 
killed  himself  as  gratuitously  as  if  he  had  taken  a  pistol! 
And  he  did  it  out  of  sheer,  devilish  vanity  —  ambition! 
He  had  worked  himself  almost  insane,  anyhow.  I'd 
warned  him  that  he  must  take  it  easy,  get  all  the  rest  he 
could.  His  nerves  were  like  fiddle-strings.  And  what  did 
he  do?  Made  a  night  trip  to  Evanston  to  superintend  a 
job  entirely  outside  his  work.  The  inspector  gave  the 
machines  the  regular  test;  but  Paul  wasn't  satisfied.  Said 
they  hadn't  come  up  to  what  he'd  guaranteed  to  get  the 
contract;  took  charge  of  the  test  himself,  ran  the  speed 
up  goodness  knows  how  high.  The  inspector  said  he 
warned  him,  but  Paul  had  got  going  and  nothing  could 
stop  him  —  speed-mad  —  efficiency-mad  —  whatever  you 
call  it.  And  at  last  the  fly-wheel  on  the  engine  couldn't 
stand  it.  It  went  through  four  floors  and  tore  a  hole  in 
the  roof  —  they  say,  in  their  ghastly  phrase,  there  isn't 
enough  left  of  him  for  a  funeral!  The  other  men  left 
widows  and  children,  too,  I  suppose  —  Oh,  damn!  damn! 
damn ! "  He  stopped  short  in  the  middle  6f  the  floor,  his 
teeth  chattering,  his  hand  at  his  mouth. 

Rankin's  face  showed  that  he  was  making  a  great  effort 
to  speak.  "  Would  I  be  allowed  to  see  her  ? "  he  asked 
finally. 

The  doctor  spun  round  on  him,  amazed.  "  You  ? 
Lydia  ?  Why  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  could  quiet  her.  I  have  been  able  to  quiet 
several  delirious  sick  people  when  others  couldn't." 

"  I  don't  even  know  she's  delirious  —  that's  what  puzzles 
me.  She  seems — " 

"  Will  you  let  me  try  ?  "  asked  Rankin  again. 

When  they  reached  the  house  in  Bellevue,  Lydia  was  still 
in  a  heavy  stupor,  so  Mrs.  Sandworth  told  them,  showing  no 
surprise  at  Rankin's  appearance.  The  two  men  sat  down 
outside  the  door  of  her  room  to  wait.  It  was  a  long  hour 


34°  The  Squirrel-Cage 

they  passed  there.  Rankin  sat  silent,  holding  on  his  knee 
little  Ariadne,  who  amused  herself  quietly  with  his  watch 
and  the  leather  strap  that  held  it.  He  took  the  back  off, 
and  let  her  see  the  little  wheel  whirring  back  and  forth. 
His  eyes  never  left  the  child's  serious,  rosy  face.  Once  or 
twice  he  laid  his  large,  work-roughened  hand  gently  on 
her  dark  hair. 

Dr.  Melton  fidgeted  about,  making  excursions  into  the 
sick  room  and  downstairs  to  look  after  his  business  by 
telephone,  and,  when  he  sat  by  the  door,  relieving  his 
overburdened  heart  from  time  to  time  in  some  sudden 
exclamation.  "  Paul  hasn't  left  a  penny,  of  course,"  one 
of  these  ran,  "  and  he  hadn't  finished  paying  for  the  house. 
But  she'll  come  naturally  to  live  with  Julia  and  me."  At 
these  last  words,  in  spite  of  his  painful  preoccupation,  a 
tender  look  of  anticipation  lighted  his  face. 

Again,  he  said :  "  What  crazy  notion  can  it  be  about  the 
whatever-it-was  getting  Paul  ?  "  Later,  "  Was  there  ever 
such  a  characteristic  death  ?  "  Finally,  with  a  long  sigh : 
"  Poor  Paul !  Poor  Paul !  It  doesn't  seem  more  than 
yesterday  that  he  was  a  little  boy.  He  was  a  brave  little 
boy!" 

Mrs.  Sandworth  came  to  the  door.  "  She's  beginning 
to  come  to  herself,  I  think.  She  stirs,  and  moves  her 
hands  about." 

As  she  spoke,  there  was  a  scream  from  the  bedroom: 
"  My  baby !  My  baby !  " 

Rankin  sprang  to  his  feet,  holding  Ariadne  on  one  arm, 
and  stepped  quickly  inside.  "  Here  is  the  baby,"  he  said 
in  a  quiet  voice.  "  I  was  holding  her  all  the  time  you 
slept.  I  will  not  let  the  Minotaur  come  near  her." 

Lydia  looked  at  him  long,  with  no  sign  of  recognition. 
The  room  was  intensely  silent.  A  drop  of  blood  showed 
on  Dr.  Melton's  lower  lip  where  his  teeth  gripped  it. 

"  Nobody  else  sees  it,"  said  Lydia  in  a  hurried,  fright- 
ened tone.  "  They  won't  believe  me  when  I  say  it  is  there. 
They  won't  take  care  of  Ariadne.  They  can't  — " 


Protection  from  the  Minotaur          341 

"  I  see  it,"  Rankin  broke  in.  He  went  on  steadily :  "  I 
will  take  care  that  it  does  not  hurt  Ariadne." 

"  Do  you  promise  ?  "  asked  Lydia  solemnly. 

"  I  promise,"  said  Rankin. 

Lydia  looked  about  her  wonderingly,  with  blank  eyes. 
"  I  think,  then,  I  will  lie  down  and  rest  a  little,"  she  said, 
in  a  thin,  weak  voice.  "  I  feel  very  tired.  I  can't  seem 
to  remember  what  makes  me  so  tired."  She  sank  back 
on  the  pillows  and  closed  her  eyes.  Her  face  was  like  a 
sick  child's  in  its  appealing,  patient  look  of  suffering.  She 
looked  up  at  Rankin  again.  "  You  will  not  go  far  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  I  shall  be  close  at  hand,"  he  answered. 

"  You  are  very  kind,"  murmured  Lydia,  closing  her  eyes 
again.  "  I  am  sorry  to  be  so  much  trouble  to  you  —  but 
it  is  so  important  about  Ariadne.  I  am  sorry  to  be  so  — 
you  are  —  very — " 

Melton  touched  the  other  man's  arm  and  motioned  him 
to  the  door. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
AS  ARIADNE  SAW  IT 

ALL  that  day,  the  tall,  ruddy-haired  man  in  working 
clothes  sat  in  the  hall,  within  sight,  though  not  within  hear- 
ing, of  the  sick  room,  playing  with  the  rosy  child,  and  ex- 
erting all  his  ingenuity  to  invent  quiet  games  that  they 
could  play  there  "  where  Muvver  tan  see  us " ;  Ariadne 
soon  learned  the  reason  for  staying  in  one  place  so  con- 
stantly. She  was  very  happy  that  day.  Never  in  her  life 
had  she  had  so  enchanting  a  playfellow.  He  showed  her 
a  game  to  play  with  clothespins  and  tin  plates  from  the 
kitchen  —  why,  it  was  so  much  fun  that  'Stashie  herself 
had  to  join  in  as  she  went  past.  And  he  told  one  story 
after  another  without  a  sign  of  the  usual  grown-up  fatigue. 
They  had  their  lunch  there  at  the  end  of  the  hall,  on  the 
little  sewing-table  with  two  dolls  beside  them  and  the  new 
man  made  Ariadne  laugh  by  making  believe  feed  the  dolls 
out  of  her  doll's  tea-set. 

It  was  a  little  queer,  of  course,  to  stay  right  there  all 
the  time,  and  to  have  Muvver  staring  at  them  from  the 
bedroom  at  the  other  end  of  the  hall,  and  not  to  be  al- 
lowed to  do  more  than  tiptoe  in  once  or  twice  and  kiss 
her  without  saying  a  word ;  but  when  Ariadne  grew  con- 
fused with  trying  to  think  this  out,  and  the  little  eyes 
drooped  heavily,  the  new  man  picked  her  up  and  tucked 
her  away  in  his  arms  so  comfortably  that,  though  she  meant 
to  reach  up  and  feel  if  his  beard  felt  as  red  as  it  looked, 
she  fell  asleep  before  she  could  raise  her  hand. 

When  she  woke  up  it  was  twilight,  but  she  was  still  in 
his  arms.  She  stirred  sleepily,  and  he  looked  down  and 
smiled  at  her.  His  face  looked  like  an  old  friend's  —  as 


As  Ariadne  Saw  It  343 

though  she  had  always  known  it.  He  had  a  friendly  smile. 
She  was  very  happy.  Uncle  Marius  came  toward  them, 
teetering  on  his  toes,  the  way  he  always  did.  "  I  think  it's 
safe  to  leave  now,  Rankin,"  he  said.  "  She  has  fallen  into 
a  natural  sleep." 

The  new  man  stood  up,  still  holding  Ariadne.  How 
tall  he  was!  She  kept  going  up  and  up,  and  when  she 
peered  over  his  shoulder  she  found  herself  looking  down 
on  Uncle  Marius'  white  head. 

"  How  about  to-morrow  ?  "  asked  the  new  man. 

"  We'll  see.  We'll  see,"  said  Dr.  Melton ;  and  then  they 
all  went  downstairs  and  had  toast  and  boiled  eggs  for 
supper.  Ariadne  informed  her  companions,  looking  up 
from  her  egg  with  a  yolky  smile,  "  Daddy  told  Muvver  the 
other  day  that  'Stashie  had  certainly  learned  to  boil  eggs 
something  fine!  And  he  laughed,  but  Muvver  didn't.  Was 
it  a  joke  ?  " 

"  They  are  very  good  eggs  indeed,  and  well  boiled," 
the  new  man  answered.  She  loved  the  way  in  which  he 
conversed  with  her. 

"  Ought  we  to  give  her  some  idea  ?  "  asked  the  doctor  in 
a  low  voice. 

"  I  would  wait  until  she  asks,"  said  the  other. 

But  Paul's  child  never  asked.  Once  or  twice  she  re- 
marked that  Daddy  was  away  longer  than  usual  "  vis  time," 
but  he  had  never  been  a  very  steadily  recurrent  phenome- 
non in  her  life,  and  soon  her  little  brain,  filled  with  new 
impressions,  had  forgotten  that  he  ever  used  to  come 
back. 

!i  There  were  many  new  impressions.  A  great  deal  was 
happening  nowadays.  Every  morning  something  dif- 
ferent, every  day  new  people  going  and  coming.  Aunt 
Marietta,  Auntie  Madeleine,  Uncle  George  from  Cleve- 
land, whom  she'd  seen  only  once  or  twice  before,  and 
Great-Aunt  Hollister,  whom  she  knew  very  well  and 
feared  as  well  as  she  knew  her.  After  a  time  even  the 
husbands  began  to  appear,  the  husbands  she  had  seen  so 
rarely;  Aunt  Marietta's  husband,  and  Aunt  Madeleine's 


344  'Th'e  Squirrel-Cage 

—  fat,  bald  Mr.  Lowder,  who  smelled  of  tobacco  and  soap 
and  took  her  up  on  his  lap  —  as  much  as  he  had  —  and 
gave  her  a  big  round  dollar  and  kissed  her  behind  her  ear 
and  smiled  at  her  very  kindly  and  held  her  very  close.  He 
said  he  liked  little  girls,  and  he  wished  Auntie  Madeleine 
would  get  him  one  some  day  for  a  Christmas  present.  She 
informed  him,  filled  with  admiration  at  the  extent  of  her' 
own  knowledge,  that  he  couldn't  get  a  Christmas  present 
some  day,  but  only  just  Christmas  Day. 

Mostly,  however,  they  paid  no  attention  to  her,  these 
many  aunts  and  uncles  who  came  and  went.  And,  oddly 
enough,  Uncle  Marius  always  shut  the  door  to  Muvver's 
room  when  they  came,  and  wouldn't  let  them,  no  matter 
how  much  they  wanted  to,  go  in  and  see  Muvver,  who  was, 
she  gathered,  very  sick.  Ariadne  didn't  see,  really,  why 
they  came  at  all,  since  they  couldn't  see  Muvver  and  they 
certainly  never  so  much  as  looked  at  'Stashie,  dear  darling 
'Stashie  —  more  of  a  comfort  these  queer  days  than  ever 
before  —  and  they  never,  never  spoke  to  the  new  man,  who 
came  and  went  as  though  nobody  knew  he  was  there. 
They  would  look  right  at  him  and  never  see  him.  Every- 
thing was  very  hard  for  a  little  girl  to  understand,  and 
she  dared  ask  no  questions. 

Everybody  seemed  to  be  very  angry,  and  yet  not  at  her. 
Indeed,  she  took  the  most  prodigious  care  to  avoid  doing 
anything  naughty  lest  she  concentrate  on  herself  this  now 
widely  diffused  disapprobation.  Never  in  her  life  had  she 
tried  so  hard  to  be  good,  but  nobody  paid  the  least  at- 
tention to  her  —  nobody  but  the  new  man  and  'Stashie, 
and  they  weren't  the  angry  ones.  The  others  stood  about 
in  groups  in  corners,  talking  in  voices  that  started  in  to  be 
low  and  always  got  loud  before  they  stopped.  Ariadne 
added  several  new  words  to  her  vocabulary  at  this  time, 
from  hearing  them  so  constantly  repeated.  When  her 
dolls  were  bad  now,  she  shook  them  and  called  them  "  In- 
decent !  indecent !  "  and  asked  them,  with  as  close  an  imi- 
tation as  she  could  manage,  of  Great- Aunt  Hollister's  tone, 
"  What  do  you  suppose  people  are  thinking !  What  do 


As  Ariadne  Saw  It  345 

you  suppose  people  are  thinking !  "  Or  she  knocked  them 
into  a  corner  and  said  "  Shocking !  Shocking !  " 

One  day  she  stopped  Uncle  Marius,  hurrying  past  her 
up  the  stairs,  and  asked  him :  "  What  are  you  thinking  of, 
Uncle  Marius  ?  " 

"  What  am  I  thinking  of?  What  do  you  mean?  "  he  re- 
peated, his  face  and  eyes  twitching  the  way  they  did  when 
he  couldn't  understand  something  right  off. 

"  Why,  Auntie  Madeleine  keeps  asking  everybody  all 
the  time,  'What  can  the  doctor  be  thinking  of?'  I  just 
wondered." 

He  bent  to  kiss  her  raspingly  —  there  were  stiff  little 
stubby  white  hairs  coming  out  all  over  his  face  —  and  he 
said,  as  he  trotted  on  up  the  stairs,  "  I  am  thinking  of  mak- 
ing sure  that  you  have  a  mother,  my  poor  dear." 

And  then  there  was  a  bigger  change  one  day.  She  went 
to  bed  in  her  own  little  crib,  and  when  she  woke  up  she 
wasn't  there  at  all,  but  in  a  big  bed  in  a  room  at  Aunt 
Julia's;  and  Aunt  Julia  was  smiling  at  her,  and  hugging 
her,  and  saying  she  was  so  glad  she  had  come  to  live  with 
her  and  Uncle  Marius  for  a  while.  Ariadne  found  out 
that  Uncle  Marius  had  brought  her  and  Muvver  the  night 
before  in  a  carriage  all  the  way  from  Bellevue.  She  re- 
gretted excessively  that  she  had  not  been  awake  to  enjoy 
the  adventure. 

At  Aunt  Julia's,  things  were  quieter.  All  at  once  the 
other  people,  the  other  uncles  and  aunts,  had  disappeared. 
That,  of  course,  was  because  she  and  Muvver  were  at 
Aunt  Julia's.  She  conceived  of  the  house  in  Bellevue  as 
still  filled  with  their  angry  faces  and  voices,  still  echoing 
to  "  Indecent !  indecent !  "  and  "  What  do  you  suppose  peo- 
ple are  saying  ?  " 

There  was  a  long,  long  time  after  this  when  »othing 
special  happened.  The  new  man  continued  to  come  here, 
and  his  visits  were  the  only  events  in  Ariadne's  quiet  days. 
Apparently  he  came  to  see  Ariadne,  for  he  -never  went  to 
see  Muvver  at  all,  as  he  used  to  do  in  Bellevue.  He  took 
Ariadne  out  in  the  back  yard  as  the  weather  began  to  get 


346  The  Squirrel-Cage 

warmer,  and  showed  her  lots  of  outdoor  plays.  He  was 
as  nice  as  ever,  only  a  good  deal  whiter ;  and  that  was  odd, 
for  they  were  now  in  May,  and  from  playing  outdoors  all 
the  time  Ariadne  herself  was  as  brown  as  a  berry.  At 
least,  that  was  what  Aunt  Julia  said.  Ariadne  accepted 
it  with  her  usual  patient  indulgence  of  grown-ups'  mistakes. 
There  was  not,  of  course,  a  single  berry  that  was  anything 
but  red  or  black,  or  at  least  a  sort  of  blue,  like  huckle- 
berries in  milk.  She  and  'Stashie  had  gone  over  them, 
one  by  one ;  they  knew. 

Uncle  Marius  remembered  to  shave  himself  nowadays. 
In  fact,  everything  was  more  normal.  Ariadne  began  to 
forget  about  the  exciting  time  in  Bellevue.  Muvver  wasn't 
in  bed  all  the  time  now,  but  sat  up  in  a  chair  for  part  of 
the  day  and  even,  if  one  were  ever  so  quiet,  could  listen 
to  accounts  of  what  happened  in  Ariadne's  world  and 
could  be  told  how  Aunt  Julia  said  that  'Stashie  was  quite 
a  help  as  second  girl  if  you  just  remembered  to  put  away 
the  best  china,  and  that  they  had  had  eight  new  cooks  since 
Ariadne  had  been  there,  but  the  second  ^vould  have  stayed, 
only  her  mother  got  sick.  The  others  just  left.  But 
Aunt  Julia  didn't  mind.  When  there  wasn't  any  cook,  if 
it  happened  to  be  'Stashie's  day  off,  they  all  had  bread  and 
milk  for  supper,  just  as  she  had,  and  they  let  her  set  the 
table,  and  she  could  do  it  ever  so  well  only  she  forgot 
some  things,  of  course,  and  Uncle  Marius  never  got  mad. 
He  just  said  he  hoped  eating  bread  and  milk  like  her  would 
make  him  as  good  as  she  was  —  and  she  was  good  —  oh, 
Muvver,  she  was  trying  ever  so  hard  to  be  good — • 

"  Come,  dear,"  said  Aunt  Julia,  "  Mother's  getting  tired. 
We'd  better  go." 

It  was  only  after  she  went  away,  sometimes  only  when 
she  lay  awake  in  her  strange  big  bed,  that  Ariadne  remem- 
bered that  Muvver  never  said  a  word,  but  only  smoothed 
her  hair  and  kissed  her. 

She  and  the  new  man  used  to  play  out  in  the  old  grape- 
arbor  in  the  back  yard,  and  it  was  there,  one  day  in  mid- 
May,  that  Uncle  Marius  came  teetering  out  and  called  the 


As  Ariadne  Saw  It  347 

new  man  to  one  side,  only  Ariadne  could  hear  what  they 
said.  Uncle  Marius  said :  "  It's  no  use,  Rankin.  It's  a 
fixed  idea  with  her.  She  isn't  violent  any  more,  but  she 
hasn't  changed.  She  is  certainly  a  little  deranged,  but  not 
enough  for  legal  restraint.  She  could  take  Ariadne  and 
disappear  any  day.  I'm  in  terror  lest  she  do  that.  I've 
no  authority  to  prevent  her.  She  won't  talk  to  me  freely 
about  what  she  is  afraid  of.  She  doesn't  seem  to  trust  me 
—  me!" 

Ariadne  found  the  conversation  as  dull  as  all  overheard 
grown-ups'  talk,  and  tried  to  busy  herself  with  a  corn-cob 
house  the  new  man  had  been  showing  her  how  to  build. 
Two  or  three  times  lately  he  had  taken  her  out  to  his 
little  house  in  the  woods  and  showed  her  a  lot  of  tools, 
and  told  her  what  they  were  for,  and  said  if  she  were  older 
he  would  teach  her  how  to  use  them.  Ariadne's  head  was 
full  of  the  happy  excitement  of  those  visits.  Corn-cob 
houses  were  for  babies,  she  thought  now. 

After  a  time,  Uncle  Marius  went  away,  slamming  the 
front  gate  after  him  and  stamping  away  up  the  street  as 
though  he  were  angry,  only  he  did  all  kinds  of  queer  things 
without  being  angry.  Jn  fact,  she  had  never  seen  him 
angry.  Perhaps  he  and  Muvver  were  different  from  other 
people  and  never  were. 

She  looked  up  with  a  start.  The  new  man  had  come 
back  to  the  arbor,  but  he  did  not  look  like  play.  He  looked 
queer,  so  queer  that  Ariadne's  sensitive  lower  lip  began  to 
tremble  and  the  corners  of  her  mouth  to  draw  down.  She 
could  not  remember  having  done  anything  naughty.  She 
was  frightened  by  the  way  he  looked.  And  yet,  he  picked 
her  up  quite  gently,  and  held  her  on  his  knee,  and  asked 
her  if  Muvver  could  walk  about  the  house  yet. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  told  him,  "  and  came  down  to  dinner 
last  night." 

The  new  man  put  her  down,  and  asked  her  with  a 
"  please  "  and  "  I'd  be  much  obliged  "  as  though  she  were 
a  grown-up  herself,  if  she  would  do  something  for  him  — 
go  to  Muvver  and  ask  her  if  she  felt  strong  enough  to  come 


348  The  Squirrel-Cage 

down  into  the  grape-arbor  to  see  him.  Tell  her  he  had 
something  very  special  to  say  to  her. 

Ariadne  went,  skipping  and  hopping  in  pleasurable  ex- 
citement at  her  own  importance,  and  returned  triumphantly 
to  say  that  Muvver  said  she  would  come.  She  wondered 
if  he  felt  too  grown-up  for  cob  houses  himself.  He  hadn't 
built  it  any  higher  when  she  was  gone.  He  looked  as  if  he 
hadn't  even  winked.  While  she  stood  wondering  at  his 
silence,  his  face  got  very  white.  He  stood  up  looking  to- 
ward the  house.  Muvver  was  coming  out,  very  slowly, 
leaning  on  the  railing  to  the  steps  —  Muvver  in  the  night- 
gowny  dress  Aunt  Julia  had  made  her,  only  it  wasn't  really 
nightgowny,  because  it  was  all  over  lace  —  Muvver  with 
her  hair  in  two  braids  over  her  shoulders  and  all  mussed 
up  where  she'd  been  lying  down.  Ariadne  wondered  that 
she  hadn't  smoothed  it  a  little.  She  knew  what  people 
would  say  to  her  if  she  came  around  with  her  hair  looking 
like  that. 

The  man  went  forward  to  meet  Muwer,  and  gave  her 
his  hand,  and  they  neither  of  them  smiled  or  said  how  do 
you  do,  but  came  back  together  toward  the  arbor.  And 
when  they  got  there  Muvver  sat  down  quick,  as  though  she 
were  tired,  and  laid  her  head  back  against  the  chair.  The 
man  lifted  Ariadne  up  and  kissed  her  —  he  had  never 
done  that  before.  Now  she  knew  how  his  beard  felt  — 
very  soft.  She  felt  it  against  her  face  for  a  long  time. 
And  he  told  her  to  go  into  the  house  to  'Stashie. 

So  she  went.  Ariadne  always  did  as  she  was  told. 
'Stashie  was  trying  to  make  some  ginger  cookies,  and  the 
oven  "  jist  would  not  bake  thim,"  she  said.  They  were  all 
doughy  when  they  came  out,  very  much  as  they  were  when 
they  went  in;  but  the  dough  was  deliciously  sweet  and 
spicy.  'Stashie  and  Ariadne  ate  a  great  deal  of  it,  because 
'Stashie  knew  very  well  from  experience  that  the  grown- 
ups have  an  ineradicable  prejudice  against  food  that  comes 
out  of  the  oven  "  prezackly  "  the  way  it  went  in. 

After  that  they  had  to  wash  their  hands,  all  sticky  with 
dough,  and  after  that  'Stashie  took  Ariadne  on  her  lap  and 


As  Ariadne  Saw  It  349 

told  her  Irish  fairy  stories,  all  about  Cap  O'Rushes  and 
the  Leprechaun,  till  they  were  startled  by  the  boiling  over 
of  the  milk  'Stashie  had  put  on  the  stove  to  start  a  pudding. 
'Stashie  certainly  did  have  bad  luck  with  her  cooking,  as 
she  herself  frequently  sadly  admitted. 

But,  oh!  wasn't  she  darling  to  Ariadne!  It  made  the 
lonely  little  girl  warm  all  over  to  be  loved  the  way  'Stashie 
loved  her.  Sometimes  when  Ariadne  woke  up  with  a 
bad  dream  it  was  'Stashie  who  came  to  quiet  her,  and  she 
just  hugged  her  up  close,  close,  so  that  she  could  feel  her 
heart  go  thump,  thump,  thump.  And  she  always,  always 
had  time  to  explain  things.  It  was  wonderful  how  much 
time  'Stashie  had  for  that  —  or  anything  else  Ariadne 
needed. 

She  was  putting  more  milk  on  the  stove  when  in  dashed 
Uncle  Marius,  his  mouth  wide  open  and  his  hands  jump- 
ing around.  "Where's  your  mother?  Where's  Mrs.  Hoi- 
lister  ?  "  he  cried. 

"  Out  in  the  arbor,"  said  Ariadne. 

"Alone?" 

"  Oh,  no  —  '  Ariadne  began  to  explain,  but  the  doctor 
had  darted  to  the  window.  You  could  see  the  grape- 
arbor  plainly  from  there  —  Muvver  sitting  with  her  hair 
all  mussed  up  around  her  face,  listening  to  the  new  man, 
who  sat  across  the  table  from  her  and  talked  and  talked 
and  talked,  and  never  moved  a  finger.  Uncle  Marius  put 
his  hand  up  quick  to  his  side  and  said  something  Ariadne 
couldn't  catch.  She  looked  up,  saw  his  face,  and  ran  away, 
terrified,  to  hide  her  face  in  'Stashie's  dirty  apron.  Now 
she  knew  how  Uncle  Marius  looked  when  he  was  angry. 
She  heard  him  go  out  and  down  the  steps,  and  went  fear- 
fully to  watch  him.  He  went  across  the  grass  to  the  arbor. 
The  others  looked  toward  him  without  moving,  and  when 
he  came  close  and  leaned  against  the  table,  Muvver  looked 
up  at  him  and  said  something,  and  then  leaned  back  again, 
her  head  resting  against  the  chair,  her  eyes  closed,  her 
hands  dropped  down.  How  tired  Muvver  always  looked! 

And  just  then  'Stashie  spiMed  all  the  cocoa  she  was  going 


350  The  Squirrel-Cage 

to  use  to  flavor  the  pudding  with.  She  spilled  it  on  the 
stove,  and  it  smoked  and  stinked  —  there  was  nobody  now- 
adays to  forbid  Ariadne  to  use  'Stashie's  words  —  and 
'Stashie  said  there  wasn't  any  more  and  they'd  have  to 
go  off  to  the  grocery-store  to  get  some,  and  if  Ariadne 
knew  where  that  nickel  was  Mis'  Sandworth  give  her, 
they  could  get  a  soda-water  on  the  way,  and  with  two  straws 
it  would  do  for  both. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
WHAT  IS  BEST  FOR  THE  CHILDREN? 

LYDIA  lifted  her  face,  white  under  the  shadow  of  her 
disordered  hair,  and  said :  "  It  is  Mr.  Rankin  who  must 
take  care  of  the  children  —  Ariadne,  and  the  baby  if  it 
lives." 

She  spoke  in  a  low,  expressionless  voice,  as  though  she 
had  no  strength  to  spare.  Dr.  Melton's  hand  on  the  table 
began  to  shake.  He  answered :  "  I  have  told  you  before, 
my  dear,  that  there  is  no  reason  for  your  fixed  belief  that 
you  will  not  live  after  the  baby's  birth.  You  must  not 
dwell  on  that  so  steadily." 

Lydia  raised  her  heavy  eyes  once  more  to  his.  "  I  want 
him  to  have  the  children,"  she  said. 

The  doctor  took  a  step  or  two  away  from  the  table. 
He  was  now  shaking  from  head  to  foot,  and  when  he  came 
back  to  the  silent  couple  and  took  a  chair  between  them  he 
made  two  or  three  attempts  at  speech  before  he  could 
command  his  voice.  "  It  is  very  hard  on  me,  Lydia,  to  — 
to  have  you  turn  from  me  to  a —  to  a  stranger."  Hisj 
voice  had  grotesque  quavers. 

Lydia  raised  a  thin,  trembling  hand,  and  laid  it  on  her 
godfather's  sinewy  fingers.  She  tried  to  smile  into  his  face. 
"  Dear  Godfather,"  she  said  wistfully,  "  if  it  were  only 
myself  —  but  the  children — " 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Lydia  ?  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  he 
demanded  with  tremulous  indignation. 

She  dropped  her  eyes  again  and  drew  a  long,  sighing 
breath.  "  I  haven't  strength  to  explain  to  you  all  I  mean," 
she  said  gently,  "  and  I  think  you  know  without  my  telling 
you.  You  have  always  known  what  is  in  my  heart." 

35i 


352  The  Squirrel-Cage 

"  I  had  thought  there  was  some  affection  for  me  in  your 
heart,"  said  the  doctor,  thrusting  out  his  lips  to  keep  them 
from  trembling. 

Lydia's  drooping  position  changed  slightly.  She  lifted 
her  hands  and  folded  them  together  on  the  table,  leaning 
forward,  and  bending  full  on  the  doctor  the  somber  in- 
tensity of  her  dark,  deep-sunken  eyes.  "  Dear  Godfather, 
I  have  no  time  or  strength  to  waste."  The  slowness  with 
which  she  chose  her  words  gave  them  a  solemn  weight. 
"  I  cannot  choose.  If  it  hurts  you  to  have  me  speak  truth, 
you  must  be  hurt.  You  know  what  a  failure  I  have  made 
of  my  life,  how  I  have  missed  everything  worth  having  — " 

Dr.  Melton,  driven  hard  by  some  overmastering  emotion, 
drew  back,  and  threw  aside  precipitately  the  tacit  under- 
standing he  and  Lydia  had  always  kept.  "  Lydia,  what 
are  you  talking  about!  You  have  been  more  than  usually 
favored  —  you  have  been  loved  and  cherished  as  few 
women — "  His  voice  died  away  under  Lydia's  honest, 
tragic  eyes. 

She  went  on  as  though  he  had  not  spoken.  "  My  chil- 
dren must  know  something  different.  My  children  must 
have  a  chance  at  the  real  things.  If  I  die,  who  can  give 
it  to  them?  Even  if  I  live,  shall  I  be  wise  enough  to  give 
them  what  I  had  not  wisdom  or  strength  enough  to  get  for 
myself?" 

"  You  speak  as  though  I  were  not  in  the  world,  Lydia," 
the  doctor  broke  in  bitterly,  "or  as  though  you  hated  and 
mistrusted  me.  Why  do  you  look  to  a  stranger  to — " 

"  Could  you  do  for  my  children  what  you  have  not  done 
for  yourself  ? "  she  asked  him  earnestly.  "  How  much 
would  you  see  of  them?  How  much  would  you  know  of 
them?  How  much  of  your  time  would  you  be  willing  to 
sacrifice  to  learn  patiently  the  inner  lives  of  two  little  chil- 
dren? You  would  be  busy  all  day,  like  the  other  people  I 
know,  making  money  for  them  to  dress  like  other  well-to-do 
children,  for  them  to  live  in  this  fine,  big  house,  for  them 
to  go  to  expensive  private  schools  with  the  children  of  the 


What  Is  Best  for  the  Children?        353 

people  you  know  socially  —  for  them  to  be  as  much  as 
possible  like  the  fatherless  child  I  was." 

Lydia  clenched  her  thin  hands  and  went  on  passionately : 
"  I  would  rather  my  children  went  ragged  and  hungry 
than  to  be  starved  of  real  companionship." 

The  doctor  made  a  shocked  gesture.  "  But,  Lydia,  some- 
one must  earn  the  livings.  You  are — " 

Lydia  broke  in  fiercelj- :  "  They  are  not  earning  livings 
—  they  are  earning  more  dresses  and  furniture  and  delicate 
food  than  their  families  need.  They  are  earning  a  satis- 
faction for  their  own  ambitions.  They  are  willing  to  give 
their  families  anything  but  time  and  themselves." 

"  Lydia !  Lydia !  I  never  knew  you  to  be  cruel  before ! 
They  can  not  help  it  —  the  way  their  lives  are  run.  It's 
not  that  they  wish  to  —  they  can  not  help  it !  It  is  against 
an  economic  law  you  are  protesting." 

"  That  economic  law  has  been  broken  by  one  person  I 
know,"  said  Lydia,  "  and  that  is  the  reason  I  — " 

The  doctor  flushed  darkly.  The  tears  rose  to  his  eyes. 
"  Lydia,  oh,  my  dear !  trust  me  —  trust  me !  I,  too,  will  — 
I  swear  I  will  do  all  that  you  wish  —  don't  turn  away  from 
me  —  trust  me  — !  " 

Lydia's  mouth  began  to  quiver.  "  Ah !  don't  make  me 
say  what  must  sound  so  cruel !  " 

The  doctor  stared  at  her  hard.  "  Make  you  say,  you 
mean,  that  you  don't  trust  me." 

She  drew  a  little,  pitiful  breath,  and  turned  away  her 
head.  "  Yes ;  that  is  what  I  mean,"  she  said.  She  went 
on  hurriedly,  putting  up  appealing  hands  to  soften  her 
words,  "  You  see  —  it's  the  children  —  I  must  do  what 
is  best  for  them.  It  must  be  done  once  for  all.  Suppose 
you  found  you  couldn't  now,  after  all  these  years,  turn 
about  and  be  different?  Suppose  you  found  you  couldn't 
arrange  a  life  that  the  children  could  be  a  part  of,  and 
help  in,  and  really  do  their  share  and  live  with  you.  You 
mean  to  —  I'm  sure  you  mean  to!  But  you  never  have 
yetl  How  dare  I  let  you  try  if  you  are  not  sure?  I  can't 


354  The  Squirrel-Cage 

come  back  if  I  am  dead,  you  know,  and  make  a  new  ar- 
rangement. Mr.  Rankin  has  proved  that  he  can  — " 

At  the  name,  the  doctor's  face  darkened.  He  shot  a 
black  look  at  the  younger  man  sitting  beside  him  in  his 
strange  silence.  "  What  has  Rankin  done  ? "  he  asked 
bitterly.  "  I  should  say  the  very  point  about  him  is  that 
he  has  done  nothing." 

"  He  has  tried,  he  has  tried,  he  is  trying,"  cried  Lydia, 
beating  her  hands  on  the  table.  "  Think !  Of  all  the  peo- 
ple I  know,  he  is  the  only  one  who  is  even  trying.  That 
was  all  I  wanted  myself.  That  is  all  I  dare  ask  for  my 
children  —  a  chance  to  try." 

"  To  try  what  ?  "  asked  the  doctor  challengingly. 

"  To  try  not  to  have  life  make  them  worse  instead  of 
better.  That's  not  much  to  ask  —  but  nobody  I  know,  but 
one  only  has — " 

"  Simplicity  and  right  living  don't  come  from  camping 
out  in  a  shed,"  said  the  doctor  angrily.  "  Externals  are 
nothing.  If  the  heart  is  right  and  simple — " 

"If  the  heart  is  right  and  simple,  nothing  else  matters. 
That  is  what  I  say,"  answered  Lydia. 

Dr.  Melton  gave  a  gesture  of  cutting  the  question  short. 
"  Well,  of  course  it's  quite  impossible !  Rankin  can't  pos- 
sibly have  any  claim  on  your  children  in  the  event  of  your 
death.  Think  of  all  your  family,  who  would  be — " 

"/  think  of  them"  said  Lydia  with  an  accent  so  strange 
that  the  doctor  was  halted.  "  Oh,  I  have  thought  of 
them ! "  she  said  again.  She  put  her  hands  over  her  eyes. 
"  Could  I  not  make  a  will,  and  appoint  as  guardian  — "  she 
began  to  ask. 

Dr.  Melton  cut  her  short  with  a  sound  like  a  laugh, 
although  his  face  was  savage.  "  Did  you  never  hear  of 
wills  being  contested?  How  long  do  you  suppose  a  will 
you  make  under  the  present  circumstances  would  stand 
against  an  attack  on  it  by  your  family  and  the  Hollisters, 
with  their  money  and  influence ! " 

"  Oh !  Oh ! "  moaned  Lydia,  "  and  I  shall  not  be  here 
to—" 


What  Is  Best  for  the  Children?         355 

Rankin  stirred  throughout  all  his  great  height  and  broke 
his  silence.  He  said  to  Lydia :  "  There  is  some  way  — 
there  must  be  some  way.  I  will  find  it." 

Lydia  took  down  her  hands  and  showed  a  face  so  ravaged 
by  the  emotions  of  the  colloquy  that  the  physician  in  her 
godfather  sprang  up  through  the  wounded  jealousy  of  the 
man.  "  Lydia,  my  dear,  you  must  stop  —  this  is  idiotic  of 
me  to  allow  you  —  not  another  word.  You  must  go  into 
the  house  this  instant  and  lie  down  and  rest — " 

He  bent  over  her  with  his  old,  anxious,  exasperated,  pro- 
tecting air.  Lydia  seized  his  hands.  Her  own  were  hot 
and  burning.  "  Rest !  I  can't  rest  with  all  this  unset- 
tled !  I  go  over  and  over  it  —  how  can  I  sleep !  How  can 
you  think  that  your  little  opiates  will  make  me  forget  that 
my  children  may  be  helpless,  with  no  one  to  protect 
them—'  She  looked  about  her  wildly.  "Why,  little 
Ariadne  may  be  given  to  Madeleine!"  Her  horrified  eyes 
rested  again  on  her  godfather.  She  drew  him  to  her. 
"  Oh,  help  me !  You've  always  been  kind  to  me.  Help 
me  now ! " 

There  was  a  silence,  the  two  exchanging  a  long  gaze. 
The  man's  forehead  was  glistening  wet.  Finally,  his 
breath  coming  short,  he  said :  "  Yes ;  I  will  help  you,"  and, 
his  eyes  still  on  hers,  put  out  a  hand  toward  Rankin. 

The  younger  man  was  beside  them  in  a  stride.  He  took 
the  hand  offered  him,  but  his  gaze  also  was  on  the  white 
face  of  the  woman  between  them.  "  We  will  do  it  to- 
gether," he  told  her.  "  Rest  assured.  It  shall  be  done." 

The  corners  of  Lydia's  mouth  twitched  nervously. 
"  You  are  a  good  man,"  she  said  to  her  godfather.  She 
looked  at  Rankin  for  a  moment  without  speaking,  and  then 
turned  toward  the  house,  wavering.  "  Will  you  help  me 
back  ? "  she  said  to  the  doctor,  her  voice  quite  flat  and 
toneless ;  "  I  am  horribly  tired." 

When  the  doctor  came  back  again  to  the  arbor,  Mrs. 
Sandworth  was  with  him,  her  bearing,  like  his,  tha*  **&  a 
person  in  the  midst  of  some  cataclysmic  upheaval.  It 


356  The  Squirrel-Cage 

evident  that  her  brother  had  told  her.  Without  greeting 
Rankin,  she  sat  down  and  fixed  her  eyes  on  his  face.  She 
did  not  remove  them  during  the  talk  that  followed. 

The  doctor  stood  by  the  table,  drumming  with  his  fingers 
and  grimacing.  "  You  must  know,"  he  finally  made  a 
beginning  with  difficulty,  "  I  don't  know  whether  you  real- 
ize, not  being  a  physician,  that  she  is  really  not  herself. 
She  has  for  the  present  a  mania  for  providing  as  she  thinks 
best  for  her  children's  future.  Of  course  no  one  not  a 
monomaniac  would  so  entirely  ignore  your  side,  would  con- 
ceive so  strange  an  idea.  She  is  so  absorbed  in  her  own 
need  that  she  does  not  realize  what  an  unheard-of  request 
she  is  making.  To  burden  yourself  with  two  young  chil- 
dren—  to  mortgage  all  your  future — " 

Rankin  broke  in  with  a  shaking  voice  and  a  face  of  exul- 
tation :  "  Good  God,  Doctor !  Don't  grudge  me  this  one 
chance  of  my  life !  " 

The  doctor  stared,  bewildered.  "What  are  you  talking 
about?"  he  asked. 

"  About  myself.  I  don't  do  it  often  —  let  me  now.  Do 
you  think  I  haven't  realized  all  along  that  what  you  said  of 
me  is  true  —  that  I  have  done  nothing?  Done  nothing 
but  succeed  smugly  in  keeping  myself  in  comfort  outside 
the  modern  economic  treadmill !  What  else  could  I  do  ? 
I'm  no  orator,  to  convince  other  people.  I  haven't  any 
universal  panacea  to  offer!  I'm  only  an  inarticulate  coun- 
tryman, a  farmer's  son,  with  the  education  the  state  gives 
everyone  —  who  am  I,  to  try  to  lead?  Apparently  there 
was  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  ignobly  to  take  care  of  my- 
self —  but  now,  God  be  thanked !  I  have  my  chance. 
Someone  has  been  hurt  in  their  infernal  squirrel-cage,  and 
I  can  help — " 

The  older  man  was  looking  at  him  piercingly,  as  though 
struck  by  a  sudden  thought.  He  now  cut  him  short  with, 
"  You're  not  deceiving  yourself  with  any  notion  that  she  — " 

The  other  answered  quickly,  with  a  smile  of  bitter  hu- 
mility :  "  You  have  seen  her  look  at  me.  She  does  not 
know  whether  I  am  a  human  being  or  not  —  I  am  to  her 


What  Is  Best  for  the  Children?        357 

any  strong  animal,  a  horse,  an  ox  —  any  force  that  can 
carry  Ariadne  safely ! "  He  added,  in  another  tone,  his 
infinitely  gentle  tone :  "  I  see  in  that  the  extremity  of  her 
anxiety." 

The  doctor  put  his  hand  on  the  other  man's  powerful 
arm.  "  Do  you  realize  what  you  are  proposing  to  yourself  ? 
You  are  human.  You  are  a  young  man.  Are  you  strong 
enough  to  keep  to  it  ?  " 

Rankin  looked  at  him.     Mrs.  Sandworth  leaned  forward. 

"  I  am,"  said  Rankin  finally. 

The  words  echoed  in  a  long  silence. 

The  younger  man  stood  up.  "  I  am  going  to  see  a  law- 
yer," he  announced  in  a  quiet  voice  of  return  to  an  every- 
day level.  "  Until  then,  we  have  all  more  to  think  over 
than  to  talk  about,  it  seems  to  me." 

After  he  had  left  them  the  brother  and  sister  did  not 
speak  for  a  time.  Then  the  doctor  said,  irritably :  "  Julia, 
say  something,  for  Heaven's  sake.  What  did  you  think  of 
what  he  said  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  hear  what  he  said,"  answered  Mrs.  Sandworth; 
"  I  was  looking  at  him." 

"  Well  ?  "  urged  her  brother. 

"  He  is  a  good  man,"  she  said. 

A  sense  that  she  was  holding  something  in  reserve  kept 
him  silent,  gazing  expectantly  at  her. 

"How  awfully  he's  in  love  with  her!"  she  brought  out 
finally.  "  That's  the  whole  point.  He's  in  love  with  her ! 
All  this  talk  about '  ways  of  living '  and  theories  and  things 
that  they  make  so  much  of  —  it  just  amounts  to  nothing  but 
that  he's  in  love  with  her." 

"  Oh,  you  sentimental  idiot ! "  cried  the  doctor.  "  I 
hoped  to  get  some  sense  out  of  you." 

"  That's  sense,"  said  Mrs.  Sandworth. 

"  It  hasn't  anything  to  do  with  the  point !  Why,  as 
for  that,  Paul  was  in  love  with  — " 

"He  was  not!"  cried  Mrs.  Sandworth,  with  a  sudden 
loud  certainty. 


358  .The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  doctor  caught  her  meaning  and  considered  it  frown- 
ingly.  When  he  spoke,  it  was  to  burst  out  pathetically: 
"/  have  loved  her  all  her  life." 

"  Oh,  you ! "  retorted  his  sister,  with  a  sad  conclusive- 
ness. 

Ariadne  came  running  out  to  them.  "  I  just  went  to 
look  into  Muvver's  room,  and  she  was  sound  asleep! 
Honest !  She  was !  " 

The  child  had  heard  enough  of  the  doctor's  long  futile 
struggles  with  the  horrors  of  Lydia's  sleepless  nights  to 
divine  that  her  news  was  important.  She  was  rewarded 
with  a  startled  look  from  her  elders.  "  Come ! "  said  the 
doctor. 

They  went  into  the  house,  and  silently  to  Lydia's  half- 
open  door.  She  lay  across  the  bed  as  she  had  dropped 
down  when  she  came  in,  one  long  dark  braid  hanging  to 
the  floor.  They  stood  looking  at  her  almost  with  awe,  as 
though  they  were  observing  for  the  first  time  the  merciful 
miracle  of  sleep.  Her  bosom  rose  and  fell  in  long,  regular 
breaths.  The  drawn,  haggard  mask  that  had  overlain  her 
face  so  many  months  was  dissolved  away  in  an  utter  uncon- 
sciousness. Her  eyelashes  lay  on  a  cheek  like  a  child's; 
her  mouth,  relaxed  and  drooping,  fell  again  into  the  lines 
they  had  loved  in  her  when  she  was  a  little  girl.  She  looked 
like  a  little  girl  again  to  them. 

Mrs.  Sandworth's  hand  went  to  her  throat.  She  looked 
at  her  brother  through  misty  eyes.  He  closed  the  door 
gently,  and  drew  her  away,  making  the  gesture  of  a  man 
who  admits  his  own  ignorance  of  a  mystery. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
THROUGH  THE  LONG  NIGHT 

"  THEY  must  have  gone  crazy,  simply  crazy! "  said  Mad- 
eleine, making  quick,  excited  gestures.  "  Mrs.  Sand- 
worth,  of  course  —  a  person  can  hardly  blame  her  for  any- 
thing! She's  a  cipher  with  the  rim  off  when  the  doctor 
has  made  up  his  mind.  But,  even  so,  shouldn't  you  think 
in  common  decency  she'd  have  let  us  know  what  they  were 
up  to  in  time  to  prevent  it?  /  never  heard  a  word  of  this 
sickening  business  of  Ariadne's  adoption  till  day  before 
yesterday.  Did  you?"  she  ended  half-suspiciously. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  stopped  her  restless  pace  up  and  down 
the  old-fashioned,  high-ceilinged  room,  and  made  a  gesture 
for  silence.  "  I  thought  I  heard  something  —  up  there," 
she  explained,  motioning  to  the  upper  part  of  the  house. 
"  I  wonder  what  made  Lydia  so  sure  beforehand  that  she 
wouldn't  live  through  this?" 

"  Well,  I  guess  from  what  the  nurse  told  me  there  isn't 
much  chance  for  her,"  said  Madeleine  in  a  hard  voice. 
Her  color  was  not  so  high  as  usual,  her  beautiful  face 
looked  grim,  and  she  spoke  in  a  bitter  tone  of  seriousness 
that  made  her  seem  quite  another  person.  Marietta's  thin, 
dark  countenance  gave  less  indication  of  her  mood,  what- 
ever it  was.  She  looked  sallow  and  worn,  and  only  her 
black  eyes,  hot  and  gloomy,  showed  emotion. 

Both  women  were  silent  a  moment,  listening  to  the  sound 
of  footsteps  overhead.  "  It  seems  as  though  it  must  be 
over  soon  now ! "  cried  the  childless  one  of  the  two,  draw- 
ing in  her  breath  sharply.  "  It  makes  me  furious  to  think 
of  women  suffering  so.  Bertha  Williamson  was  telling  me 
the  other  day  about  when  her  little  Walter  was  born  —  it 
made  me  sick!" 

359 


360  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  matron  looked  at  her  and  shivered  a  little,  but  made 
no  response. 

"  The  nurse  says  Lydia  is  mostly  unconscious  now. 
Perhaps  the  worst  is  over  for  her!  Poor  Lyd!  What 
do  you  suppose  made  her  act  so?"  went  on  Madeleine, 
moving  about  restlessly,  her  voice  uncertain.  She  went  to 
the  window,  and  drew  aside  the  shade  to  look  out  into  the 
blackness.  "  Oh,  I  wish  the  men  would  come !  What  time 
is  it,  do  you  suppose  ?  Yes,  I  see ;  half-past  three.  Oh,  it 
must  be  over  soon !  I  wish  they'd  come !  You  telegraphed 
George,  didn't  you  ?  Heavens !  how  it  rains !  " 

"  He  was  to  come  on  the  midnight  train.  Is  your  hus- 
band—" 

"  Oh,  he  was  horrid  about  it  —  wanted  me  to  do  it  all 
myself.  He's  in  the  midst  of  some  big  deal  or  other.  But 
I  told  him  he'd  have  to  come  and  help  out,  or  I'd  —  I'd 
kill  him !  He'll  bring  the  lawyer." 

"  Where  do  you  suppose  ?  "  began  Marietta,  looking  over 
her  shoulder. 

"  Out  in  his  shanty  in  the  Black  Rock  woods,"  said  Mad- 
eleine harshly,  "  with  no  idea  of  what's  going  on.  Just 
before  you  came,  the  doctor  sent  out  for  a  messenger  to 
take  him  word,  and  you'd  better  believe  I  got  hold  of  that 
messenger ! " 

"  Of  course  that'll  make  things  easier,"  said  Marietta. 

"  Oh,  it  won't  be  hard  at  all,"  Madeleine  assured  her ; 
"  the  lawyer'll  be  right  at  hand ;  it'll  be  over  in  a  minute." 

Marietta's  face  altered.  She  drew  back  from  the  other 
woman.  "  Oh,  Madeleine !  you  act  as  though  —  you  were 
counting  on  Lydia's — " 

"  No ;  I'm  not.  I  used  to  think  a  lot  of  Lydia  before  she 
disgraced  poor  Paul's  memory  in  this  way!  But  you  see 
it'll  be  easy  to  do,  one  way  or  the  other.  If  she  —  if  she 
doesn't  —  why,  Marietta,  you  know  Lydia !  She  never  can 
hold  out  against  you  and  George,  the  nearest  she  has  in  the 
world.  I  should  think  you'd  feel  awfully  about  what  peo- 
ple are  saying  —  her  letting  Ariadne  be  adopted  in  that 
scandalous  way  when  she  had  brothers  and  sisters.  I  should 


Through  the  Long  Night  361 

think  you'd  feel  like  asserting  yourselves.  /  do,  certainly ! 
I'm  just  as  near  to  Ariadne  as  you  are!  And  I  know 
George  is  perfectly  furious  about  the  whole  business ! " 

"  But  maybe  the  doctor  won't  let  us  go  in,  right  in  to 
her  — " 

A  long-cherished  grudge  rose  to  the  surface  in  Mrs. 
Lowder's  energetic  reply :  "  Well,  I  guess  this  is  one  time 
when  the  high-and-mighty  Dr.  Melton'll  have  to  be  shoved 
on  one  side,  and  if  necessary  I'll  do  the  shoving !  " 

"You  feel  justified?" 

"  Justified !  I  should  think  I  do !  Justified  in  keeping 
my  brother's  child  out  of  the  clutches  of  that  —  and  if  my 
husband  and  your  brother  together  can't  raise  the  cash  and 
the  pull  to  get  Ariadne  away  from  him,  too,  I  miss  my 
guess.  They  will ;  of  course  they  will,  or  what's  the  use  of 
having  money  when  you  go  to  law  !  " 

Marietta  was  silent.  Madeleine  took  her  lack  of  re- 
sponsiveness as  due  to  the  resentment  of  a  poor  person  to 
her  remarks  as  to  the  value  of  wealth  in  a  democracy.  She 
frowned,  regretting  a  false  step,  and  went  on  conciliatorily : 
"Of  course  we're  only  doing  what  any  decent  family  is 
bound  to  do  —  protecting  the  children.  It's  what  Lydia 
herself  would  want  if  she  were  in  her  right  mind." 

She  fell  silent  now,  restless,  fidgeting  about,  picking  up 
small  objects  and  setting  them  down  unseeingly,  and  occa- 
sionally going  to  the  window  to  look  out  at  the  hot,  rainy 
night.  She  was  in  mourning  for  Paul,  and  above  her 
black  draperies  her  face  was  now  like  marble. 

Mrs.  Mortimer,  also  in  black,  sat  in  a  determinedly  passive 
silence. 

Finally,  the  younger  woman  broke  out :  "  Oh,  I'll  go 
crazy  if  I  just  stay  here!  I'm  going  upstairs  to  see  the 
nurse  again." 

In  an  instant  she  was  back,  her  face  whiter  than  before. 

"  It's  a  boy  —  alive,  all  right  —  half  an  hour  ago.  Would 
you  think  they'd  let  us  sit  here  and  never  tell  us  — "  Her 
voice  changed.  "  A  little  boy  — "  She  sat  down, 

"How  is  Lydia?"  asked  Lydia's  sister. 


362  The  Squirrel-Cage 

" — a  little  boy,"  said  Madeleine.  She  addressed  the 
other  woman  peremptorily.  "  I  want  him !  You  can  have 
Ariadne !  "  She  flushed  as  she  spoke,  and  added  defiantly : 
"  I  know  I  always  said  I  didn't  want  children !  " 

"  How  is  Lydia  ?  "  Marietta  broke  in  with  an  angry  impa- 
tience. 

"  Very  low,  the  nurse  said ;  Dr.  Melton  wouldn't  give 
any  hope." 

Marietta's  face  twitched.  Her  large  white  hands  clasped 
each  other  hard. 

"  I'm  going  into  the  doctor's  office  to  telephone  my  hus- 
band," went  on  Madeleine ;  "  there's  not  a  minute  to  lose." 

After  she  was  alone,  Mrs.  Mortimer's  thin,  dark  face  set- 
tled into  tragic  repose.  She  leaned  back  her  head  and 
closed  her  eyes,  from  which  a  slow  tear  ran  down  over  her 
sallow  cheeks.  There  was  no  sound  but  the  patter  of  sum- 
mer rain  on  the  porch  roof  outside. 

Firm,  light  steps  came  hastily  to  the  outer  door,  the  door 
clicked  open  and  shut,  the  steps  came  down  the  hall.  Mrs. 
Mortimer  sat  up  and  opened  her  eyes.  She  saw  a  tall  man 
in  rough  clothes,  hatless,  with  raindrops  glistening  on  his 
bright,  close-cropped  hair  and  beard.  He  was  hesitating  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs,  but  at  her  slight  movement  he  caught 
sight  of  her  and  rushed  toward  her.  "  Has  she  —  is  there 
— "  he  began. 

Mrs.  Mortimer  gazed  intently  into  his  quivering  face. 
"  My  sister  has  given  birth  to  a  son,  and  lies  at  the  point  of 
death,"  she  said  with  her  unsparing  conciseness,  but  not 
harshly. 

The  man  she  addressed  threw  up  one  hand  as  though  she 
had  struck  him,  and  took  an  aimless,  unsteady  step.  Mrs. 
Mortimer  did  not  turn  away  her  eyes  from  the  revelation  of 
his  face.  Her  own  grew  sterner.  She  was  trying  to  bring 
herself  to  speak  again.  She  put  her  hand  on  his  arm  to 
attract  his  attention,  and  looked  with  a  fierce  earnestness 
into  his  face.  "  Listen,"  she  said.  "  We  were  wrong,  all 
of  us,  about  Lydia.  We  were  wrong  about  everything. 
You  were  right.  I  wanted  to  tell  you.  If  my  sister  had 


Through  the  Long  Night  363 

lived  —  she  is  so  young  —  I  hoped — "  She  turned  away 
to  hide  the  sudden  break-up  of  her  rigid  calm.  "  Little 
Lydia !  "  she  cried.  "  Oh,  misery !  misery !  " 

Behind  them  was  the  sound  of  a  shutting  door  and  a 
key  turned  in  the  lock.  They  both  spun  about  and  saw 
Mrs.  Lowder  slip  the  key  into  the  bosom  of  her  dress.  Her 
aspect  of  white  determination  suited  this  theatrical  gesture, 
as  she  placed  herself  quickly  before  the  door.  "  If  you 
will  promise  me  solemnly  that  you  will  leave  the  house  at 
once,  I  will  let  you  out,"  she  said,  in  a  high,  shaking  voice. 

Rankin  did  not  answer.  He  looked  at  her  as  though  he 
did  not  see  her. 

"  What  business  have  you  here,  anyhow  ?  "  she  went  on 
fiercely. 

"  I  am  here  to  adopt  Mrs.  Hollister's  second  child," 
stated  Rankin,  collecting  himself  with  an  effort. 

Mrs.  Lowder's  pale  face  flushed.  "  You'll  do  nothing  of 
the  sort.  I  shall  adopt  my  brother's  child  myself!  How 
dare  you  —  a  perfect  stranger — " 

"  Mrs.  Hollister  wishes  it,"  said  Rankin. 

"  Lydia  is  out  of  her  mind  —  if  she  is  alive !  "  said  Made- 
leine, trembling  excitedly,  "  and  the  child's  own  relatives 
are  the  proper  —  you  needn't  think  you  are  going  to  keep 
Ariadne,  either !  It  can  be  proved  in  any  court  that  Lydia 
was  crazy,  and  that  her  family  are  the  ones  that  ought  to  — " 

"  That  will  be  decided  in  the  future,"  said  Rankin.  "  For 
the  present  I  have  a  legal  right  to  Ariadne,  and  I  shall 
have  to  the  boy !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  you  would  dare  to  lay  hands  on  a  wo- 
man ? "  cried  Madeleine,  extending  her  arms  across  the 
door. 

Rankin  turned,  and  in  one  stride  had  reached  the  window, 
which  stood  open  to  the  hot,  rainy  summer  night.  He 
was  gone  in  an  instant. 

"  Quick !  quick !  Lock  the  front  door !  "  cried  Madeleine, 
fumbling  with  the  key.  She  turned  it  and  darted  into  the 
hallway,  and  fell  back,  crying  angrily :  "  Oh,  no !  there's 
the  back  door  —  and  the  doctor's  office  and  all  the  win- 


364  The  Squirrel-Cage 

dows.  It's  no  use !  It's  no  use !  "  She  broke  into  a  storm 
of  sobs.  "  You  didn't  help  a  bit !  "  she  cried  furiously  to 
the  other  woman.  "  You  didn't  even  try  to  help !  " 

It  was  an  accusation  against  which  Marietta  did  not  at- 
tempt to  defend  herself. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
THE  SWAYING  BALANCE 

DR.  MELTON  was  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  as  the  other  man 
came  bounding  up.  "  Where  in  God's  name  have  you 
been  ?  "  he  demanded.  "  Did  you  start  as  soon  as  my  mes- 
senger — " 

"  No  messenger  came  —  only  'Stashie  just  now.  I 
started  the  instant  she — " 

"  Have  you  the  paper  —  the  contract  —  whatever  it  — " 

Rankin  showed  a  flash  of  white  in  his  pocket.  "  Is  she 
able  to  sign  it?" 

"  Oh,  she  must !  She  won't  have  an  instant's  peace  un- 
til she  does.  She  has  been  wild  because  you  were  so  late 
in—" 

Their  hurried,  broken  colloquy  was  cut  short  by  a  nurse 
who  came  to  Dr.  Melton,  saying,  "  The  patient  is  always 
asking  if  the  gentleman  who  is  to — " 

"  Yes,  yes ;  he  is  here."  The  doctor  motioned  her  to 
precede  them.  "  Go  in ;  you're  needed  as  a  witness." 

He  held  Rankin  back  an  instant  at  the  door.  "  Remem- 
ber! No  heroics!  Just  have  the  signing  done  as  quickly 
as  possible  and  get  out ! "  His  little  wizened  face  looked 
ghastly  in  the  dim  light  of  the  hall,  but  his  voice  was  firm, 
and  his  hand  did  not  tremble. 

Rankin  followed  him  into  the  bedroom,  which  was  filled 
with  a  strong  odor  of  antiseptics.  The  nurse  turned  on 
the  electric  light,  shading  it  with  her  hand  so  that  the  light 
fell  only  on  the  lower  part  of  the  bed,  leaving  Lydia's  head 
in  the  shadow. 

She  lay  very  straight  and  stark,  as  though,  thought  Ran- 
kin despairingly,  she  were  already  dead.  Her  right  arm 
was  out  over  the  sheet,  her  thin  hand  nerveless.  Her  face 

365 


366  The  Squirrel-Cage 

was  very  white,  her  lips  swollen  and  bleeding  as  though  she 
had  bitten  them  repeatedly.  She  was  absolutely  motionless, 
lying  on  her  back  with  closed  eyes.  At  the  slight  sound 
made  by  the  men  in  entering,  she  opened  her  eyes  and  looked 
at  them.  Every  vestige  of  color  dropped  out  of  Rankin's 
face.  Her  eyes  were  alive,  sane,  exalted  —  Lydia's  own 
eyes  again. 

He  was  holding  the  paper  open  in  his  hand,  and  without 
a  word  knelt  down  by  the  bed,  offering  it  to  her  mutely. 
Their  eyes  met  in  a  long  gaze.  The  doctor  and  nurse 
looked  away  from  this  mute  communion.  Rankin  put  a 
pen  in  Lydia's  fingers  and  held  up  the  paper.  With  a  faint, 
sighing  breath,  loud  in  the  silent  room,  she  raised  her  hand. 
It  fell  to  the  bed  again.  Dr.  Melton  then  knelt  beside  her, 
put  his  own  sinewy,  corded  fingers  around  it  and  guided  it 
to  the  paper.  The  few  lines  were  traced.  Lydia's  hand 
dropped  and  her  eyes  closed.  Rankin  stood  up  to  go. 

The  nurse  turned  off  the  light  and  the  room  was  again 
in  a  half  obscurity,  the  deep,  steady  voice  of  the  rain  com- 
ing in  through  the  open  windows,  the  sweet  summer-night 
smells  mingling  with  the  acrid  odor  of  chemicals,  Lydia 
lying  straight  and  stark  under  the  sheet  —  but  now  her 
eyes  were  open,  shining,  fixed  on  Rankin.  Their  light 
was  the  last  he  saw  as  he  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

After  a  time  the  doctor  came  out  and  joined  Rankin 
waiting  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  He  looked  very  old  and 
tired,  but  the  ghastly  expression  of  strain  was  replaced 
with  a  flickering  restlessness.  He  came  up  to  Rankin, 
blinking  rapidly,  and  touched  him  on  the  arm.  "  Look 
here !  "  he  whispered.  "  Her  pulse  has  gone  down  from  a 
hundred  and  fifty  to  a  hundred  and  thirty." 

He  sat  down  on  the  top  step,  clasped  his  hands  about  his 
knees,  and  leaned  his  white  head  against  the  balustrade. 
He  looked  like  some  small,  weary,  excited  old  child. 
"  Lord,  Rankin !  Sit  down  when  you  get  a  chance ! "  he 
whispered.  "  If  you'd  been  through  what  I  have !  And 
you  needn't  try  to  get  me  to  add  another  word  to  what 
I've  just  told  you.  I  don't  dare!  It  may  mean  nothing, 


The  Swaying  Balance  367 

you  know.  It  may  very  likely  mean  nothing.  Good 
Heavens !  The  mental  sensitiveness  of  women  at  this  time ! 
It's  beyond  belief.  I  never  get  used  to  the  miracle  of  it. 
Everything  turns  on  it  —  everything!  If  the  pulse  should 
go  down  ten  more  now,  I  should  —  Oh,  Heaven  bless  that 
crazy  Celt  for  getting  you  here!  Good  Lord!  If  you 
hadn't  come  when  you  did!  I  don't  see  what  could  have 
become  of  the  messenger  I  sent  —  why,  hours  ago  —  I  knew 
that  nothing  could  go  right  if  you  weren't  —  is  that  the 
door  ?  "  He  sprang  up  and  sank  back  again  — "  I  told  the 
nurse  to  report  as  soon  as  there  was  any  change  —  I  was 
afraid  if  I  stayed  in  the  room  she  would  feel  the  twitching 
of  my  damned  nerves  —  yes,  really  —  it's  so  —  she's  in  a 
state  when  a  feather's  weight  —  suppose  'Stashie  hadn't 
brought  you!  I  couldn't  have  kept  Madeleine  off  much 
longer  —  God!  if  Madeleine  had  gone  into  that  room,  I  — 
Lydia  —  but  nobody  told  'Stashie  to  go!  It  must  have 
been  an  inspiration.  I  thought  of  course  my  messenger  — 
I  was  expecting  you  every  instant.  She's  been  crouching 
out  here  in  the  hall  all  night,  not  venturing  even  to  ask  a 
question,  until  I  caught  sight  of  her  eyes  —  she  loves  Lydia 
too !  I  told  her  then  the  baby  had  come  and  that  her 
mistress  had  no  chance  unless  you  were  here.  She  must 
have  —  when  did  she  — " 

Rankin  gave  a  sound  like  a  sob,  and  leaned  against  the 
wall.  He  had  not  stirred  before  since  the  doctor's  first 
words.  "  You  don't  mean  there's  hope? "  he  whispered, 
"  any  hope  at  all  ?  " 

The  doctor  sprang  at  him  and  clapped  his  hand  over  his 
mouth.  "  I  didn't  say  it !  I  didn't  say  it !  " 

The  door  behind  them  opened,  and  the  nurse  stepped  out 
with  a  noiseless  briskness.  The  doctor  walked  toward  her 
steadily  and  listened  to  her  quick,  low-toned  report.  Then 
he  nodded,  and  she  stepped  back  into  the  bedroom  and  shut 
the  door.  He  stood  staring  at  the  floor,  one  hand  at  his 
lips. 

Rankin  made  an  inarticulate  murmur  of  appeal.  His  face 
glared  white  through  the  obscurity  of  the  hall. 


368  The  Squirrel-Cage 

The  older  man  went  back  to  him,  and  looked  up  earnestly 
into  his  eyes.  "  Yes ;  there's  every  hope,"  he  said.  He 
added,  with  a  brave  smile :  "  For  you  and  Lydia  there's 
every  hope  in  the  world.  For  me,  there's  the  usual  lot  of 
fathers." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
ANOTHER  DAY  BEGINS 

THEY  started.  From  below  came  a  wail  of  fright  As 
they  listened  the  sound  came  nearer  and  nearer.  "  That's 
Ariadne  —  a  bad  dream  —  get  her  quiet,  for  the  Lord's 
sake." 

"Where  is  she  sleeping?" 

"  In  the  room  next  the  parlor." 

Rankin  gave  an  exclamation,  and  leaped  down  the  stairs. 
At  the  foot  he  was  met  by  a  little  figure  in  sleeping-drawers. 
"  Favver !  Favver !  "  she  sobbed,  holding  up  her  arms. 

Rankin  caught  her  up  and  held  her  close.  "  You  prom- 
ised you  wouldn't  get  so  afraid  of  dreams,  little  daughter," 
he  said  in  a  low,  tender  voice  of  reproach. 

"  But  this  was  a  nawful  one !  "  wept  Ariadne.  "  I  fought 
I  heard  a  lot  of  voices,  men's  and  ladies'  as  mad  —  Oh ! 
awful  mad  —  and  loud!"  She  went  on  incoherently  that 
she  had  been  too  frightened  to  stir,  even  though  after  a 
while  she  dreamed  that  the  front  door  slammed  and  they 
all  went  away.  But  then  she  was  too  frightened,  and  came 
out  to  find  Favver. 

Rankin  took  her  back  to  her  bed,  and  sat  down  beside  it, 
keeping  one  big  hand  about  the  trembling  child's  cold  little 
fingers.  "  It  was  only  a  bad  dream,  Ariadne.  Just  go  to 
sleep  now.  Father'll  sit  here  till  you  do." 

"  You  won't  let  them  come  back  ?  "  asked  the  child,  draw- 
ing long,  shaken  breaths. 

"  No,"  he  said  quietly. 

"  You'll  always  be  close,  to  take  care  of  me  ?  " 

"Yes,  dear." 

"  And  of  Muwer  and  'Stashie?  " 

369 


370  The  Squirrel-Cage 

There  was  a  pause. 

Ariadne  spoke  in  grieved  astonishment.  "  Why,  of 
course  of  Muvver  and  'Stashie,  Favver." 

Rankin  took  a  sudden  great  breath.  "  I  hope  so, 
Ariadne." 

"  Well,  you  can  if  you  want  to,"  the  child  gravely  gave 
her  assent. 

She  said  no  more  for  a  time,  clutching  tightly  to  his  hand. 
Then,  "  Favver." 

"Yes,  dear." 

"  I  fink  I  could  go  to  sleep  better  if  I  had  my  bunny." 

"Yes,  dear,"  said  the  man  patiently;  "where  is  he?" 

"  I  fink  he's  under  ve  chair  where  my  clothes  are  —  ve 
big  chair.  'Stashie  lets  me  put  my  clothes  on  ve  biggest 
chair." 

The  man  fumbled  about  in  the  dark.  Then,  "  Here's 
your  bunny,  Ariadne." 

The  child  murmured  something  drowsily  unintelligible. 
The  man  took  his  seat  again  by  the  bed.  There  was  a 
pause.  The  child's  breathing  grew  long  and  regular.  The 
rain  sounded  loud  in  the  silence. 

In  the  distance  a  street-car  rattled  noisily  by.  Ariadne 
started  up  with  a  scream :  "  Favver !  Favver  1 " 

"Right  here,  dear.     Just  the  trolley-car." 

"  It  'minded  me  of  ve  mad  ladies'  voices,"  explained 
Ariadne  apologetically,  breathing  quickly.  She  added: 
"  Vat  was  such  a  nawful  dream,  Favver.  I  wonder  could 
I  have  your  watch  to  hear  tick  in  my  hand  to  go  me  to 
Bleep." 

"  Yes,  dear ;  but  only  for  to-night  because  of  the  bad 
dream." 

There  were  little  nestling  noises,  gradually  quieting  down. 
Then,  sleepily: 

"  Favver,  please." 

"Yes,  dear." 

"  I  fink  I  could  go  all  to  sleep  if  you'd  pit  your  head 
down  on  my  pillow  next  my  bunny." 


Another  Day  Begins  371 

A  stir  in  the  darkness,  and  an  instant's  quiet,  followed  by, 
"  Why,  Favver,  what  makes  your  face  all  over  water  ?  " 

There  was  no  answer. 

"  And  your  beard  is  as  wet  as  — "  She  broke  off  to  ex- 
plain to  herself :  "  Oh,  it's  rain,  of  tourse.  I  forgot  it's 
raining.  Now  I  remember  how  to  really  go  all  to  sleep.  I 
did  before.  I  listen  to  it  going  patter,  patter,  patter,  patter 
— "  The  little  voice  died  away. 

There  was  no  sound  at  all  in  the  room  but  the  swift,  light 
voice  of  the  watch  calling  out  that  Time,  Time,  Time  can 
cure  all,  can  cure  all,  can  cure  all  —  and  outside  the  brood- 
ing murmur  of  the  rain. 

A  faint,  clear  gray  began  to  show  at  the  windows. 


THE  END 


BY    DOROTHY    CANFIELD 

HOME   FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

True  stories  of  war-time  France. 

"The  finest  work  of  fiction  produced  by  the  war."— Prof,  Wm.  Lyon  Phtlps. 
"  Of  war  books. '  Home  Fires  in  France '  is  most  likely  to  endure  for  its 
truth,  its  humanity  and  its  literary  value."—  The  Nation. 

UNDERSTOOD  BETSY 

Illustrated  by  ADA  C.  WILLIAMSON. 

"  That  rare  thing,  a  good  book  for  girls." — N.  Y.  Evening  Pott. 
Older  readers  will  find  its  humor  delightful.    A  book  that  "  holds  laughter, 
some  excitement  and  all  outdoors." 

Tivo  Nove/s  of  American  Life 

THE  BENT  TWIG 

The  story  of  a  lovely  open-eyed,  open-minded  Ameri- 
can girl,  her  family,  and  her  romance. 

THE  SQUIRREL-CAGE 

An  unusual  personal  and  real  story  of  American  family 
life. 

Two  Volumes  of  Notable  Short  Stones 

HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Stories  of  Vermont  people,   with  occasional  Vermont 
Verse  by  SARAH  N.  CLEGHORN. 

THE  REAL  MOTIVE 

Stories  with  varied  backgrounds  unified  by  the  underly- 
ing humanity  of  all  the  characters. 

HENRY      HOLT      AND      COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  Yowr 


By  DOROTHY  CANFIELD  FISHER 

Author  of  The  Squirrel-Cage,  Hillsboro  People,  etc. 

A  MONTESSORI  MOTHER 

Illustrated. 

This  authoritative  book,  by  a  trained  writer  who 
has  been  most  intimately  associated  with  Dr.  Mon- 
tessori,  tells  just  what  American  mothers,  and  most 
teachers,  want  to  know  about  this  system. 

A  simple,  untechnical  account  of  the  apparatus,  the 
method  of  its  application,  and  a  clear  statement  of  the 
principles  underlying  its  use. 

"Fascinating  reading  and  likely  to  be  the  most  interesting  to  the 
average  mother  of  all  the  many  books  on  the  subject." — Primary  Plans. 

"What  would  I  not  give  to  have  had  at  the  beginning  of  my  chil- 
dren's upbringing  such  a  guide  to  the  fundamental  principles  under- 
lying their  best  growth  and  development." — MRS.  ROBERT  M.  LA  FOLLKTTI 
in  La  Follette's  Magazine. 

MOTHERS  AND  CHILDREN 

After  the  publication  of  A  Montessori  Mother  two 
years  ago,  Mrs.  Fisher  was  overwhelmed  with  personal 
letters  from  all  over  the  country  asking  special  advice. 
Mothers  and  Children,  running  along  its  easy,  half- 
humorous  way,  answers  all  these  questions  and  gives 
the  clue  to  the  answer  of  ten  thousand  more. 

"The  Tarnishing  Eye  of  Relations"  is  the  title  of 
one  chapter.  Some  other  chapters  are  "The  Sliding 
Scale  for  Obedience" ;  "A  New  Profession  for 
Women :  Question  Answerer" ;  "When  I  Am  a  Grand- 
mother"; "Nurse  or  Mother";  Mothers-by-Chance 
and  Mothers-by-Choice." 

"A  book  of  help  for  the  most  complicated  and  important  enterprise 

dom  of  an  «pe; 
Evening  Post. 


n.  UUUK  01   ucip  iur   me  mubi  complicated  ana  imp< 

in  the  world — the  rearing  of  children.     It  gives  the  wisdom  of  an_expert 
in  the  language  of  a  friend  'just  talking.'  " — New  York 


HENRY      HOLT      AND      COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


CONINCSBY     DAWSON 


Slaves  of  Freedom 

The  slaves  of  freedom  are  the  people  who  can  but  won't 
marry  —  the  entirely  "moral"  people,  both  men  and  women, 
who  think  that  they  can  get  more  out  of  life  by  remaining 
single. 

The  setting  is  New  York  and  London,  with  an  episode 
in  France;  the  hero,  a  young  Englishman;  the  heroine  is 
a  typical  "Helen  of  Fifth  Avenue." 

"Full  of  vitality  and  emotional  appeal.  .  .  .  Goes  beyond  anything  Mr 
Dawson  has  hitherto  done.  He  knows  all  the  varied  melancholies  and 
exaltations  of  a  whole-souled  idealized  passion.  He  writes  always  with 
warmth  of  feeling  and  a  pervading  sense  of  the  tenderness  and 
beauties  of  life."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

The  Garden  Without  Walls 

The  story  of  the  adventures  in  love  of  the  hero  till  his 
thirtieth  year  is  as  fascinating  as  are  the  three  heroines. 
His  Puritan  stock  is  in  constant  conflict  with  his  Pagan 
imagination.  Ninth  printing. 

"Never  did  hero  find  himself  the  adored  of  three  more  enchanting 
heroines.  A  book  which  will  deserve  the  popularity  it  is  certain  to 
achieve."  —  The  Independent. 

"The  most  enjoyable  first  novel  since  De  Morgan's  'Joseph  Vance.'  " 

—  J.  B.  Kerfoot,  in  Lift. 

The  Raft 

A  story  of  high  gallantry,  which  teaches  that  even  mod- 

ern life  is  an  affair  of  courageous  chivalry. 

"A  book  to  read  more  than  once,  to  lend,  to  dream  over."  —  Chicago 
Herald. 

"The  most  lovable  portrait  of  boyhood  since  'Peter  Pan*,  but  Mr. 
Dawson's  'Peter*  grows  up."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

Florence  on  a  Certain  Night  (and  Other  Poems) 

12mo. 

"The  work  of  a  true  lyric  poet  who  'utters  his  own  soul.'  " 

—  Literary  Digest. 


HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


"THE  CHEERIEST,  HAPPIEST  BOOKS" 
By  JULIE  M.  LIPPMANN 

"BURKESES  AMY" 

A  well-to-do  New  York  girl  gives  up  going  to  Europe, 
and  takes  to  social  work  on  the  East  Side  instead. 

"The  author  of  the  'Martha'  books  shows  here  that  she  can 
do  more  than  write  cleverly  and  make  likable  characters;  she 
proves  that  she  can  handle  a  plot  well  and  develop  a  story 
satisfactorily.  Nor  have  the  cleverness  and  the  characters  been 
omitted." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

MARTHA  BY-THE-DAY 

13th  printing, 

The  story  of  a  big,  kindly  Irish  char-woman,  a  marvel 
of  physical  strength  and  shrewd  humor,  who  takes  under 
her  wing  a  well-born  but  friendless  girl  whom  she  finds 
alone  and  helpless  in  New  York. 

"No  sweeter  humor  has  been  written  into  a  book." — Hartford 
Courant. 

"Cheeriest,  most  warm-hearted  and  humorous  character  since 
Mrs.  Wiggs." — Living  Age. 

MAKING  OVER  MARTHA 
5th  printing, 

This  story  follows  "Martha"  and  her  family  to  the 
country,  where  she  again  finds  a  love  affair  on  her  hands. 

"  'Martha'  brings  hard  sense  and  good  humor." — Neio  York 
Sun. 

MARTHA  AND  CUPID 

Tells  how  "Martha"  came  to  choose  "Sam  Slosson"  for 
her  husband,  how  she  spent  the  fund  for  her  wedding 
outfit,  solved  the  "mother-in-law"  problem,  etc. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


The  Third  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged,  of 

THE  HOME  BOOK  OF  VERSE 

COMPILED   BY 

BURTON  E.  STEVENSON 

has  been  revised  from  end  to  end — 590  poems  have  been 
added,  pages  renumbered,  author,  title,  apd  first  line  in* 
dices,  and  the  biographical  matter  corrected,  etc.,  etc. 

The  hundreds  of  letters  from  readers  and  poets  suggest- 
ing additions  or  corrections  as  well  as  the  columns  of 
reviews  of  the  first  edition  have  been  considered.  Poets 
who  were  chary  of  lending  their  support  to  an  unknown 
venture  have  now  generously  permitted  the  use  of  their 
work. 

This  edition  includes  the  "new"  poets  such  as  MASK- 
FIELD,  CHESTERTON,  FROST,  RUPERT  BROOKE,  DE  LA 
MARE,  RALPH  HODGSON,  etc. 

"A  collection  so  complete  and  distinguished  that  it  is 
difficult  to  find  any  other  approaching  it  sufficiently  for 
comparison." — New  York  Times  Book  Review  on  the 
first  edition. 

India  Paper,  4,096  pages 

Cloth,  one  volume, 

Cloth,  two  volumes, 

Half  Morocco,  one  volume. 

Half  Morocco,  two  volumes, 

HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


NOV  181996 


IS '96    RECCL 


im 


A     000126885     3 


